
5L"Lo 



Glass, 
Book! 



Bulgaria 

Self-Revealed 



DOCUMENTS COLLECTED BY 

VICTOR KUHNE 



WITH A PREFACE BY 

AUGUSTE GAUVAIN 

FORMERLY MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY OF FRANCE 



And an Appendix by 
Z. D. FERRIMAN 



LONDON 
CONSTABLE & GO. LTD. 

1919 



BULGARIA 
SELF-REVEALED 



DOCUMENTS COLLECTED BY J 

VICTOR KUHNE 



WITH A PREFACE BY 

AUGUSTE GAUVAIN 

FORMERLY MINISTER PLENIPOTENTIARY OF FRANCE 

<And an ^Appendix by 

Z. D. FERRIMAN 



LONDON 

CONSTABLE & CO. LTD. 

19.19 




$* 



tfzfi 



By exchange 
Leland ci " aivgrflflp 1 

(Frof . Has) 

1019 



CONTENTS 



CHAP. 

Preface 

I. Errors and Illusions 
II. Why the Bulgars went to War 

III. To Annihilate Serbia . 

IV. The Bulgars against the Union of the Yugo 

Slavs .... 
V. The Bulgarian Peace . 
VI. Always with Austria-Hungary 
VII. Bulgars and Hungarians 
VIII. Bulgars and Germans . 
IX. The Germanisation of Bulgaria 
X. The Bulgars in " Mittel-Europa " 
XI. The Bulgars against the Russians 
XII. The Bulgars and New Russia 

XIII. Bulgars and Slavs 

XIV. Bulgaria against the Quadruple Entente 
XV. The Bulgarian Balkan Policy 

XVI. Political Life in Bulgaria . 
XVII. The Ten Bulgarian Political Parties 
XVIII. The Failure of Theories 

XIX. Ferdinand of Coburg . 
XX. Bulgarian Megalomania 

XXI. Bulgarian Chauvinism . 

XXII. Brutality and Baseness 

XXIII. A Peculiar Mentality . 

XXIV. In Derogation^of all Rules and Convention 
Appendix 



PAGES 

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207 
215 
222 
233 
243 
251 

257 
277 



NOTES 

1. The author begs to tender Ids thanks to friends who have 
aided him in researches lor documents as in the translation of the 
texts, and whose modesty is content with anonymous collaboration. 

2. All quotations have been translated literally, sometimes 
even word for word, the author preferring to sacrifice style to the 
most precise possible rendering of the Bulgarian expressions and 
tone. 

3. The greater part of the quotations are from Bulgarian 
journals : 

(a) Semi-official (officieux) Journals : 

L'Echo de Bulgarie (in French), organ of the Ministry of 

Foreign Affairs and of the Court. 
Narodni Prava (The Rights of the People), organ of the 

Liberal Party, whose leader is the President of the 

Council, Radoslavoff. 

(b) Independent Journals, more or less Governmental : 
Dn'evnih (The Journal). 

Ouivo (The Morning). 

Zaria (The Dawn). 

Kambana (The Bell), the most Germanophil of Bulgarian 

newspapers. 
Balkanska Poclita (The Courier of the Balkans). 

(c) Opposition Journals : 

Mir (The World), organ of GueshofFs party, the Popular 
Party (National). . 

Preporetz (The Flag), organ of Malinoff' s party, the Demo- 
cratic. 

Narod (The People), organ of the Broad Socialists (re- 
formists) . 

Rabotnitcheski Veslnik (Workmen's Journal), organ of the 
Narrow Socialists (doctrinaires or extremists). 

Certain quotations are from German, Austrian, Hungarian, 
Turkish, and other journals. All journals are designated by their 
original names. 

4. The author has been careful to give to all localities the 
geographical name they bear in the countries wherein they are 
situated. He has adopted the phonetic system of orthography. 
His state of health having hindered him from personally super- 
intending the printing of the volume, he begs the reader to excuse 
such oversights as may have remained uncorrected. 

5. Dates are given according to the New Style (Gregorian). 
For the Bulgarian journals issued before its adoption in Bulgaria 
(April 1 st, 1916) the dates are adapted to the new calendar. 



PREFACE 

Thanks to M. Victor Kuhne there are no longer any grounds 
for anyone taking up the cudgels on behalf of Bulgaria. 
Prior to the autumn of 1914 those not fully informed 
might still have been uncertain as to the character of 
Bulgarian aims. Hostilities between Turkey and the 
Allies once begun, however, it was inevitable that any 
such hesitation should disappear in view of the Sofia 
Cabinet's refusal to oppose, for the sake of a dazzlingly 
rich bribe, its former oppressors. It was evident, in short , 
to every shrewd observer, that if the Czar Ferdinand and 
his Ministers were unwilling to seize the opportunity of 
recapturing Adrianople and the Enos-Midia line, it was 
because they had already, directly or indirectly, made a 
bargain with the Turks, which is to say, with Germany. 
It was hardly necessary to see and handle the papers 
recording the agreement in order to be convinced of this. 
From the moment that the Bulgars declined the Thracian 
capital, at the siege of which they fought tooth and nail 
during the winter of 1912-1913, it was certain that they 
had found otherwhere a guarantee for the enjoyment of 
something more vastly coveted and nearer to their heart's 
desire. This otherwhere was, before all else, Serbia, that 
is to say, the Ally of the Triple Entente. Everything 
alike proclaimed it, words and acts ; the words of the 
newspapers of Sofia, which demanded the immediate 
occupation of Macedonia, the acts of the " comitajis," 
who, using Bulgarian territory as a base for their 



viii • PREFACE 

operations, launched out on raids and pillaging of Serbian 
territory. 

The diplomatists of the Triple Entente were blind and 
deaf. Infatuated by the prospect of restoring the Balkan 
League of 1912, they looked on Bulgaria as a future ally. 
They did all in their power, first of all, to win over the King, 
and thereafter to influence the King through his people. 
Both attempts were doomed to failure. King and people, 
after mature reflection, chose to throw in their lot with 
the Austro-German plan. Westerners were loth to believe 
it, since it was imagined that the country set free by Russia 
in 1876-1878 still cherished some filial regards towards 
her liberator. This was a childish conclusion to draw, 
and showed that those who held it had no grasp whatever 
of political psychology. In point of fact, nearly all Bul- 
garian politicians had anti-Russian aims. In this respect 
there was but one thing differentiating them. Some 
openly advocated reliance on Austria-Hungary for support 
against Serbia, in order both to ensure the expansion of 
Macedonia and to prevent the hemming in of the young 
kingdom which must result from the Russian occupation 
of Constantinople and the Dardanelles. Others would 
first of all have sought Russia's aid against Turkey, in 
order to be thereafter in a better position for bringing the 
Serbs and the Greeks to heel. The unlimited forbearance 
shown by the Russiar^ towards the men of Sofia, and the 
ill-humour of their dealings with the Serbs and the Greeks, 
were a couple of mad blunders. The Byzantine mirage 
haunted the minds of the Imperialists, both of the Right 
and of the Left. The events of to-day show how artificial 
were the " mystic " aspirations towards Constantinople, 
which MM. Sazonov and Miliukoff declared to be irre- 
sistible. 

One of the chief merits of M. Kuhne's book is in laying 
bare the fundamental error of the Miliukoff party in this 



PREFACE 



IX 



matter. This party was held in high esteem by the very 
few in France and England who denounced the danger of 
Bulgaria's political aims. It reproached these aims with 
compromising the bond between the Allies and Bulgaria, 
while encouraging the resistance of Serbia and Greece to 
the territorial concessions in Macedonia. Now, it is this 
very party, it is MM. Sazonov and Miliukoff themselves, 
who have the most contiibuted to Bulgaria's unfriendly 
attitude, by their conduct of negotiations in 1915, in setting 
forth the claims, the rights of Russia over Constantinople 
and the Straits. This is the conclusion to be drawn from 
the numerous quotations given by M. Kuhne. For M. 
Kuhne has not written a controversial work. He has 
merely put together a packetful of Bulgarian cuttings. 
He tells us what the best-qualified Bulgarians have them- 
selves said ; he gives us a peep at what they have them- 
selves written. He neither argues, nor qualifies, nor 
judges. It is MM. Radoslavoff, Tontcheff, Ghenadieff, 
Malinoff, Daneff who do that for us ; it is Generalissimo 
Jekoff ; it is the representatives of Ferdinand abroad, 
and the organs of his government. It is even the Socialists, 
whom we fondly regarded as the ii reconcilable adversaries 
of King Ferdinand. Here, for example, is what the deputy 
Blagoieff, leader of the Orthodox Socialists, writes : 

" Domination of Constantinople and the Straits involves 
with it domination of Bulgaria. . . . There are, none the less, 
certain parties in Bulgaria who are convinced that if Russian 
policy has been unfriendly to Bulgaria, it was merely because 
it was controlled by reactionaries such as Sazonov. They 
believed that this policy would cease to be dangerous if Professor 
Miliukoff, the well-known friend of the Bulgars and the leader 
of the Russian Liberals, took over the reins of office. These 
notions have recently been exploded in the Mir and the Pre- 
poreiz. Such an idealistic theory is as dangerous as it is .base- 
less. A Liberal and middle-class Russia, with Miliukoff at the 
helm, is even a greater menace to the Balkans and to Bulgaria than 
a reactionary Russia." 



x PREFACE 

On April nth, 1916, the Narodni Prava, M. Rado- 
slavoffs press organ, commented as follows on M. MiliukofFs 
speech before the Duma on March 24th preceding : 

" The pious wishes of Miliukoff in regard to reparation 
for the injustices suffered by Bulgaria remain merely hollow 
phrases which will never cause a break in the mainspring of 
Russia's Balkan policy, which is to reach, through Roumania 
and Bulgaria, to the Dardanelles and the iEgean Sea. Miliukoff 
himself, did he hold the reins of Russian policy, would ride 
rough-shod over Bulgaria, so that Russia might reach to that 
open sea for which Miliukoff clamours as loudly as any of them. 
The only difference is, perhaps, that Miliukoff would go to 
work more warily. He would taunt Bulgaria with having 
annexed Macedonia, so that he might lay hands on Constanti- 
nople ; and afterwards, by the force of natural evolution whereby 
the stronger batten upon the weak, Miliukoff would find it 
quite right that Russia should in turn lay hold of Bulgaria and 
Macedonia." 

It is fear of Russia which has reconciled Bulgaria to 
Turkey. At Sofia, since the failure of the Tchataldja 
coup in 1912, they have wanted the Turks to remain at 
Constantinople. The moment they found they could not 
get there themselves, they wanted no one else to do so. 
In the liberator of 1878 they do not recognise a fiiend ; 
they see only a protector who aims at becoming master. 
Now, they are not willing to serve as a tool. They desire 
to become masters on their own account. They want to 
lord it over the Balkans. Russian diplomacy hab been 
completely hoodwinked. To gain her object she ought 
to have held Bulgaria in check along with Serbia, Rou- 
mania, and Greece. Instead of which she has bent her 
energies to thwarting these three latter powers. As to 
Miliukoff s party, they imagined that they would divert 
Bulgaria from the sea of Marmora by delivering Macedonia 
into her maw. The more sensible they were of uneasiness 
at Sofia in regard to the Straits, the more pressure they 
brought to bear on Serbia and Greece in order to urge on 



PREFACE 



XI 



these two powers to greater sacrifices. In what is now 
befalling them a father of the Church would discern the 
hand of Providence. 

The mistake of the Allies in regard to the Russian expe- 
dition in Dobrudja arises from the same misconception. 
In contriving Roumania's intervention in the summer of 
1916 the Allies believed that the arrival of some thousands 
of Russian soldiers in the Dobrudja would induce the 
Bulgarian soldiery to make common cause with them, and 
set them marching shoulder to shoulder to a chorus of 
Slavic hymns. It was a fantastic delusion. We now know 
what sort of welcome the Russians got from the Bulgarians ! 
M. Radoslavoff put the case to the American Colonel 
Emerson quite bluntly. " If Russia/' he said in substance, 
" should succeed in reaching Constantinople across the 
Dobrudja, we should have to resign ourselves to becoming 
either an entirely Russian region, or else a buffer state. 
An independent Bulgaria will never consent to the seizure 
of Constantinople by the Russians." 

But it is not merely the question of Constantinople 
which divides Bulgaria from the Allies, it is the Serbian 
question, the Jugo-Slav question, the Balkan question, 
the European question. M. Kuhne brings to bear the 
most overwhelming testimony on all this. Diplomatists 
and military men, politicians and journalists are at one 
in proclaiming the common interests that bind Bulgaria 
to the Central Empires. The Bulgarians contemptuously 
disclaim the Slav kinship which is attributed to them. 
They claim to be of Turanian stock. They regard 
themselves as blood-brothers of the Magyars. In a toast 
at Budapesth, M. Momtchiloft cried, " The Bulgars would 
die to the last man rather than renounce the closeness of 
their neighbourhood to Hungary." The Az Ujsag, Count 
Tisza's . press organ, affirms, " The Hamburg-Bagdad 
railway will weld together the Turanian peoples in a 



xii PREFACE 

geographical unity." At a lecture given in the Palace of 
the Reichstag at Berlin, Professor Panoff explained that 
the Bulgar was not of Slavic race, since the Slav was lost 
in the pursuit of fantastic ideas, whereas the Bulgar gave 
all his mind to grasping the reality of affairs. He defined 
the matter thus : " The Bulgars are descended from the 
Huns ; the Hungarians and the Finns are their European 
co-nationals." The Alkotmany concludes : " By its mar- 
vellous grasp of reality, which clearly marks it off from the 
passionate fantasy of the Serbian people, this race of Finno- 
Tartar nomads, thrown back from the Volga to the slopes 
of the Black Sea, has chosen the means of carving out a 
way to independence and hegemony in the Balkans." 

This realism, on all fours with that of Prussia, has, 
like Bismarck's, only succeeded thanks to the blindness of 
those States which have been called to suffer it. Its 
" marvellousness " will cease soon enough if we draw 
inspiration from the edifying avowals here collected by 
M. Victor Kuhne. A >, 

AUGUSTE GaUVAIN. 

1917. 



BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 



CHAPTER I 

MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 

Only under the repeated shock of deceptions dearly paid 
for are the bubble illusions which the Quadruple Entente 
cherished in regard to Bulgaria blown into air. The 
cynical confession of the Bulgarians themselves, whose 
mischievous bent could never resist the pleasure of jeering 
at those whom they had hoodwinked, render these decep- 
tions the more glaring. 

Already in the months of August and September, 19 15, 
the Germanophil press of Sofia took a pleasure in proving 
how persistent were the hopes that the Entente placed on 
Bulgaria, despite the conclusion of a Bulgarian loan in 
Germany and notwithstanding the arrival of German 
officers at Sofia. The Kambana could not finish off a single 
leader without a cynical laugh at the simple credulity of 
the Russians, the French, and the English ; the official 
Narodni Prava took good care to print not a single word 
which might brighten the outlook for the Entente. The 
Mir, the Preporetz, the Bulgaria, along with sundry opposi- 
tion journals of minor importance, made a show, certainly, 
of their reliance on the Entente ; but the means they 
employed for getting others to share their ideas and follow 
them out were the most ridiculous and ineffectual. Lacking 
the courage of its opinion, or, perhaps, falling short of suffi- 
cient conviction to act, the opposition was constantly 
intimidated by the Macedonian infatuation of the Govern- 
mental newspapers ; it outbid its rivals in jingoistic tub- 
thumping, and merely made still more exacting demands 
on Serbia and the Quadruple Entente. The only form 
under which the Gueshoff, Malinoff and Daneff parties 
could pluck up enough courage to advocate an agreement 



2 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

with the Entente was a compromise soothing to the patriotic 
swelled head of the Bulgarians. The only effect of this 
concession was to render Radoslavoff implacable. Else- 
where in the very opposition journals which ventured from 
time to time a diffident article in support of the Entente, 
there would appear, at the bidding of the Press Bureau of 
Sofia, any number of communiques running down the 
Entente aims, which these newspapers claimed to be defend- 
ing. Especially during the last three months preceding the 
Bulgarian attack, the Press Bureau bombarded the news- 
papers with communiques about " the reign of terror in 
Macedonia," quoting names, dates and facts, all invented 
along with the documents to ftvove them. It was stated that 
such and such a person had fallen to the Serbian knife 
or met with a horrible death in a Serbian prison. It was 
in vain that Serbia showed by the most unanswerable 
evidence that the alleged crimes were either utterly fictitious 
or had taken place under bygone Turkish rule, and that the 
Bulgarians had merely post-dated them by a few years, 
in order that they might accuse the poor Serbians whose 
disclaimers were drowned in the hubbub set up at Sofia. 
In spite of the denials, the object had been achieved. In 
exciting hatred against the Serbs, the Bulgarian Press 
Bureau succeeded in thwarting the conciliatory action of 
the Entente. 

" Down with Serbia ! " was the universal slogan. So 
popular did hatred of the neighbouring kingdom become, 
that it served as the strongest of pleas for the accused in 
political trials. In a country of primitive types, such as 
Bulgaria is, mistrust and mutual recrimination, political 
intrigue and appeal to mob passion are matters of daily 
occurrence in public life. The members of a cabinet, 
when dismissed by the King, pass almost always to the 
dock as prisoners sent for trial. The three sections of the 
Liberal party had done their utmost to see that the courts 
should condemn as high treason the advocacy and pursuit 
of any policy favourable to Russia and Serbia — such a 
policy as had brought about disaster in 1913. And yet 
it should be remembered that the accusers comprised the 
same men as had then led Bulgaria on to catastrophe. A 
year later Radoslavoff, Tontcheff and Petkoff had brought 
to book, on a charge of high treason, their colleague Ghena- 
dieff, leader of the Stamboulovists, in the Declosieres affair. 
In order to clear himself of any shadow of suspicion on the 



MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 3 

score of his patriotism, this former upholder of the Entente, 
now converted, could hit on nothing better than an attack 
on Serbia, while avowing himself an apologist of the 
Quadruple Entente. But this alone was enough to earn 
his acquittal. 

When the moment came for striking the long-premedi- 
tated blow, the cabinet of Radoslavofr held within its grasp 
everything that stands for public opinion in Bulgaria. The 
Bulgarian Government could therefore permit itself the 
audacity of shamming ignorance of any evidence as to the 
real state of things, and notwithstanding Serbia's submission 
to cruel sacrifices of which the answer to the Quadruple 
Entente gave proof, Radoslavoff had the effrontery to 
maintain that no compromise was possible, since Serbia 
refused to yield to Entente pressure. This impudent 
assertion was also repeated by King Ferdinand in the 
manifesto to his people announcing war. The impudence 
of the impostors on the one hand, and the timidity of the 
defenders of the truth on the other, combined with the lack 
of conviction and sincerity which branded all alike, set up 
an atmosphere of hypocrisy and equivocation. Everybody 
grew more and more passive under the whip-hand of 
audacity. 

Bulgarian claims grew with their chances of being 
granted.. They began by demanding territory from Serbia . 
Finding that Serbia would end by conceding the demand,, 
the Bulgarians thereupon imposed a more onerous condition, 
viz., its occupation forthwith. It was the opposition which 
launched a whole-hearted propaganda urging the necessity 
of an effectual guarantee in a preliminary and immediate 
occupation by the allied armies. The government merely 
made its claim more grasping, by insisting on an immediate 
occupation of the territory in question by the Bulgarian 
army. They dared to maintain that the Entente would 
not deal firmly enough with Serbia, and that even the 
occupation of the territory by the armies of the Entente 
would not of itself provide sufficient guarantee of its 
being ceded to Bulgaria. As to the Entente and Serbia, 
how were they to be indemnified against the consequences 
of their yielding to Bulgaria's terms ? Did they take into 
full account what was implied by the occupation of Serbia's 
only remaining free outlet by an army raised on a German 
subsidy, equipped by Germany, and under the dominance 
of German officers ? 



4 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

It is obvious that if the promises of the four Great 
Powers were merely put forward as a bait, poor little Bul- 
garia would have found it impossible to secure an adequate 
guarantee even by the immediate occupation of Macedonia 
— supposing the Entente to be victorious. But Bulgaria 
never for one moment believed in a win for the Allies. 
Hence, feeling sure that the Central Powers were to win, 
she wanted to be on the right side when the time should 
come for asking her help in adding her weight to pin down 
the Entente when the time came for counting it out. She 
thus laid all her plans to insure at a minimum cost the 
acquisition of the spoil she coveted. 

It was as plain as possible to everybody that in ever- 
increasing claims, in asserting that " the legitimate aspira- 
tions of Bulgaria are not satisfied," King Ferdinand had not 
in view, in the least, their realisation with the help of the 
Entente. But what was obvious to everybody else seemed 
hidden from the accredited diplomatists at Sofia, who 
did not grasp the situation, and failed to realise how much 
the opposition itself, though professedly favouring the 
Entente, by its very compliance, served only to give greater 
force to the current which swept Bulgaria into the war. 



The persistence of' these illusions, which linger on in 
some minds even to this day, induced the press organ of 
Gueshoff — representing the same opposition group on whom 
so many hopes were centred in the autumn of 1915 — 
to express its astonishment at the obstinate naivete of the 
Entente. Some months after Bulgaria's entry into the war, 
the Mir of March 23rd, 1916, wrote as follows : 

" Entente statesmen believed that the Bulgarian people 
would find it difficult to range themselves in arms beside Germany 
and Turkey, with whom they were but yesterday at war. They 
were convinced that the worst to be expected of Bulgaria was that 
she would remain neutral until the conclusion of hostilities. 
That is why they did their utmost to induce the Serbians and 
the Greeks to give up to Bulgaria what they had taken from 
her, and that they set themselves to win over Bulgaria to their 
side. When Bulgaria announced her mobilisation, it was 
sincerely believed in Entente circles that there would be a 
revolution in the country. Even to-day there are some who 
still labour under this delusion. Their newspapers still talk 
of riots and rebellions. They are talking about them at this 
yery moment when the men on leave are returning to the 



MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 5 

front with eagerness and enthusiasm. The Entente paid too 
dearly for its mistake, since it is Bulgarian intervention 
which brought about the downfall of the Serbian Army and 
opened up for Germany its route to the East." 

A month earlier, the Echo de Bulgarie, in its issue of 
February nth (in an article entitled " The Campaign of 
Lies "), expressed still more clearly the same idea : 

" Bulgaria herself bears a good share of the expenses of 
this amusing campaign ; she continues to attract the lively 
interest of her adversaries, and with gdod reason. Her inter- 
vention in the war, on account of the important and fortunate 
results which it has brought about, has completely upset the 
calculations of the Entente diplomatists ; to speak quite to 
the point, it must be said that she has cruelly disappointed their 
bland and self-righteous lack of foresight, and that it is an offence 
which the Entente embassies, full of self-important people, 
will not find it easy to forgive." 

On the same day (February nth) the Bulgarian Tele- 
graphic Agency published in the Neue Freie Presse a denial 
in regard to a statement made by the Agence Havas as to 
the ill-feeling of the Bulgarian populace towards the 
Germans. The denial concluded thus : 

" All statements to this effect can only be received by the 
Bulgarians with the noisiest hilarity It is amusing for them 
to observe the pig-headedness of the Sntente press in persisting 
to spread news, entirely concocted, in regard to Bulgaria and 
her attitude to her allies." 

The Bulgarian press elsewhere gave unfailing contra- 
diction to the statements circulated by the Entente press 
as to the state of feeling in Bulgaria. The Narodni Prava 
of January 17th, 1916, commenting on the news published 
in the Novoie Vremia and the Rietch regarding the Nevrokop 
risings and the so-called unrest among the intellectual 
democracy in Bulgaria, said : 

" Derided Russian opinion will one day learn the truth, and 
will certainly not leave unpunished those who are to blame for 
the terrible defeats suffered right from the beginning of the 
war d'own to the present moment, and who still persist in feeding 
it on baseless and fantastic hopes." 

The Dnevnik of January 26th, 19 16, entered its protest 
against the statements of the Daily Telegraph regarding the 
ill-will said to exist between King Ferdinand and his 
middle-class subjects, and against those made current in 
the Daily News regarding the supposed grudges which the 

B 



6 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Bulgarians nourished against their allies, and the reported 
mutiny among the officers of the 18th regiment. It asserted 
that " the interview between Wilhelm and Ferdinand 
at Nish is a demonstration not merely of the cordial under- 
standing which exists between Bulgaria and Germany, 
but also of the determination and the enthusiasm which 
binds King Ferdinand to his nation in arms. ..." " All 
this false news is circulated," writes the Mir of January 
26th, 1916, " to order, and is paid for by the Entente. 
Its only effect will be to intensify the hatred of our brave 
soldiers for the enemies of their country." 

* * 

* 

In spite of having been bluntly denied by hard facts 
no less than by articles in the Bulgarian press, these delusions 
still thrive in certain quarters. From time to time, instead 
of dying out, they take on a new lease of life. They showed 
renewed vigour, especially at the moment of Roumania's 
intervention, which synchronised with the announcement 
of more energetic action at Salonica. But these delusive 
hopes promptly faded out when once Roumania was 
involved. 

The statement which M. Keremektchieff made to the 
Berne newspaper Der Bund (September 8th, 1916) is highly 
instinctive from this point of view. The Bulgarian charge 
d'affaires at Berne declared openly as follows : 

" The Entente were hoping to impose on Bulgaria a separate 
peace, which would undoubtedly have had a decisive effect in 
determining peace terms with the Central Powers. That 
explains why they were prepared to offer us so valuable a prize, 
consisting (as I am informed on the most reliable authority) 
of the Enos-Midia-Cavalla frontier, the ceding of Greco-Serbian 
Macedonia, and the Dobrudja, taken from us in 1913. . . . 
The link uniting the Central Powers to the East having once 
been snapped, the Entente would have held the winning hand 
in the rubber. ... It is here that the Entente was completely 
out in its reckoning. The whole of its Balkan policy, moreover, 
seethes with blunders and miscalculations. The Entente had 
completely lost sight of the fact that Bulgaria was fighting, not 
for a temporary advantage, but for the full realisation of her national 
ambition. If Bulgaria cannot now, once and for all time, thrust 
aside her hereditary enemies, her loft}. 7 aims will be brought to 
nothing, and she will let slip the flood which would have 
borne her onward to the haven of her ambition. The Entente 
forgot that Bulgaria's choice lay between triumph or death. 



MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 7 

What should we gain by a separate peace ? The niaintenance 
of Roumanian imperialism, of Serbian jingoism, the sinister 
neighbourhood of two powerful enemies, and the extinction of 
our prestige. We should thus be baulked of the v/hole fruit 
of our struggles, which would have to be buried with all our 
hopes. Bulgaria is not treacherous, and she sees somewhat 
farther than her nose. Her fate is tightly bound up with that 
of the Central Powers." 

This declaration made by one holding rank among 
Bulgarian diplomatists provides an apt illustration of 
Bulgarian mentality. What inordinate ambition ! Even 
on the amazing assumption of the grant of Serbo-Greek 
Macedonia, of the Dobrudja, and almost the whole of 
Thrace, she will still be dissatisfied ; on the contrary, she 
will deem herself to have been cheated out of the " whole 
fruit of her struggles " ; she will consider that she must 
" bury all her hopes," and suffer " the extinction of her 
prestige " ! What then does she want ? What does she 
regard as the whole of these fruits, of these hopes, of this 
prestige ? Obviously the swallowing up of two-thirds of 
Serbian territory, the expectation that Serbia, having been 
put out of action, will cease to exist as an independent 
state, and that Bulgaria will thereupon be able to hold 
undisputed sway over the Balkan peninsula. 

Professor Paul Miliukoff, a Bulgarophil of long 
standing and chief of the Russian Cadets, is one of those 
who refused to be influenced by the logic of events. More- 
over Miliukoff personally was not at fault. His is a very 
complicated case. For its proper understanding two 
elements in it must first be recognised : the personal factor, 
and following thereon a misunderstanding between him 
and those who modelled their ideas on his. Miliukoff's 
sympathy for Bulgaria is strong and sincere. He is as 
much attached to her as to his own country. He loves 
it as a man will love the land to which he has devoted all 
his energy throughout a long term of years, during that 
period of life when he is most active, most fertile, and most 
impressionable. Miliukoff is attached to Bulgaria by 
intimate personal memories, and equally by a feeling of 
gratitude for the kind reception and protection he found 
there during the period of his exile when the ways of life 
were for him most hard. 

A man of action, imbued with democratic ideas, Miliukoff 
found in this new sphere a promising field for his activity. 



8 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Touched by the sight of a country which had been the cause 
of so many emotions to the Russians of his generation, 
and of which the soil was sodden with Russian blood, he 
conceived a passionate attachment for young Bulgaria 
hardly yet free, and full of the fever of growth, whose savage 
strength, though ill-curbed, opened up so vast a field for 
all his hopes. 

From the very first day Miliukoff identified himself 
with the life of his new country, shared to the full both 
in what she loved and what she loathed. Bulgaria, without 
doubt, at that time was pursuing an anti- Russian policy, 
but Miliukoff, himself having been driven out by the 
reactionary regime, interpreted Bulgaria's attitude rather 
as a valiant resistance to this reaction. This interpreta- 
tion was, to his mind, not in the least invalidated by the 
fact that in Bulgaria itself the regime setting itself up against 
that of Russia was also in the highest degree reactionary. 
From the apostles of a single idea one cannot but get 
inconsistency and inconsequence in respect to all other * 
ideas. 

In order to explain his want of interest in Serbia, 
Miliukoff, as well as a large number of his political friends, 
asserted then that Serbia had constantly based her policy 
on official and reactionary Russia. They forgot that an 
immense majority of Serbs were attached to the great 
Slav Empire without troubling themselves about the par- 
ticular colour of the interior political regime. They forgot 
as well the whole democratic and perhaps revolutionary 
history of Serbia for the last twenty years. This reserve 
is to be explained also by the bad impressions Miliukoff 
brought away from Belgrade, where the reactionary police 
of the last Obrenovitch forbade him to reside. Neither 
could he forgive Serbia for the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 1885, 
which was, however, the fault of the personal regime of 
King Milan. Influenced by these events, he could no 
longer regard Serbia as she really is, nor comprehend her 
constant democratic evolution. 

Imbued with these prejudices, picturing Serbia as a 
reactionary and ambitious State, Miliukoff ended, uncon- 
sciously, by falling into line with his colleagues of the Sofia 
University on all Balkan questions, except that of Con- 
stantinople and the Straits. This divergence of views as 
to the south-eastern limits of Bulgaria, in itself drove Miliu- 
koff to claim for her all the territory possible in the west. 



MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 9 

Such were the personal and psychological reasons for the 
attitude of Miliukoff. 

The other reason, the misunderstanding between 
Miliukoff and those in Western Europe who thought to 
follow his ideas, is not less important. Miliukoff does not 
share the illusion of the Quadruple Entente, which imagined 
that all Bulgaria, apart from Ferdinand and his Germano- 
phil clique, would be content with the role assigned to 
it by the Entente. It was quite another role that Miliukoff 
planned for Bulgaria. He was not mistaken ; the part he 
destined Bulgaria to play was not that assigned by the 
Entente, which was justified by the ethnic extent of the 
race. 

Miliukoff fell in with the notion of those who sought to 
strain a fact so absolute and material as statistics ; on the 
avowal of the best Bulgarian authorities, statistics prove 
that the Bulgarian race is the smallest in the Balkans, 
with the exception of the Albanian. * 

In tracing the frontiers of a Great Bulgaria, Miliukoff 
does not trouble much about what that Bulgaria ought to 
be legitimately ; he is concerned chiefly with creating a 
Bulgaria corresponding to the expansion of the future 
Yugo-slav nation, although a Yugo-slavia must inevitably 
be constituted by the union of a race three times more 
numerous than the Bulgarian. This method and these 
ideas are very similar to those which assign to the Serbian 
tribe, as an ethnical focus, Shoumadia, the western basin 
of the Morava, the Rashka, the Ibar, and the Drina, and 
press back the Serbians as far as possible to the west, to 
make room for the development of a Great Bulgaria in the 
eastern and largest part of the Balkan Peninsula. These 
ideas are reflected in a lecture given at Zurich in February, 
1916, by one of his best friends, a creature of his party 
in Balkan politics, the writer, Vladimir Victorof Toporoff. 
The orator explained the tendency to create a " strong 
Balkan Bulgaria " and a " strong European Serbia." The 
object is to relegate Serbia to the north-west corner of the 
Balkan Peninsula and to leave all the centre, the principal 
artery of the peninsula, to the least numerous nation 
after the Albanians. Indeed, this was the only means of 

* " Among Balkan peoples, the Bulgars are, next to the Albanians, 
the least numerous ; their country is the smallest ; they are obliged to 
hold on grimly to every inch of land on which their ancestors established 
themselves, either by peaceful penetration or conquest." A. Ichirkoff. 
The Western Confines of Bulgarian Lands. Lausanne, 1906, p. 5. 



10 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

assuring Bulgarian prestige so well formulated by M. 
Keremektchieff, and of winning Bulgaria to the Entente. 

In the course of the debate on foreign policy at the 
sitting of the Duma on March 24th, 1916, Miliukoff explained 
the check of the Quadruple Entente by the coincidence of 
three causes — the want of harmony among the allies, the 
obstinacy of Serbia, and the personal policy of King Ferdi- 
nand. He essayed to demonstrate the weakness and 
indecision of Entente diplomacy. Instead of exercising 
pressure on Bulgaria, Miliukoff advocated concessions at 
the opportune moment, and pressure on Serbia. Speaking 
of King Ferdinand, he emphasised the too well-known 
cleverness of the Bulgarian sovereign in giving to the acts 
of his ministers a direction favourable to his personal aims. 
The adversaries of the King, themselves, he added, had to 
hold their tongues when Ferdinand's policy established 
ethnographical (?) Bulgaria in the old limits assigned to it 
by Russia at San Stefano. Miliukoff ended by declaring 
that when the mistaken calculations of the Bulgars had 
been proved by the victory of the Entente, the moment would 
have come for Bulgaria to change her policy. "It is then 
we shall be rid of King Ferdinand, and the last word will 
be with the Bulgarian people, ' our friends.' " Miliukoff 
reproached the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs with 
having allowed himself to be too much influenced by 
national irritation, by the resentment of Bulgarian insult 
and ingratitude. In the absence of sentiment, in the will 
to realise at all costs, and by any means, insensate Chauvinist 
aims, Miliukoff thinks to perceive the realism of a tough 
and practical people. In the stupid denial of Slavism — 
a manifestation of hereditary servility — Miliukoff sees only 
the democratic emancipation of the mind. Through the 
prism of his warm sympathy and abstract idealism, Bulgarian 
defects change their aspect. It would seem that cupidity 
and treason are virtues — Russia and her allies have only 
to wait patiently for the moment when they can open 
their arms generously to a people repentant and disillusioned 
as to the alliance with the Central Empires. When will 
that moment come ? When the Bulgars, practical and 
pliant, having nothing more to hope from defeated Germany, 
will seek for the recognition of their exorbitant pretensions 
in a compromise with the Entente. 

During his tour in June, 1916, Miliukoff professed the 
same opinions. He made a stay in Switzerland, not only 



MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 11 

to discuss the Polish question but also to renew contact 
with his friends of Bulgaria. He asked M. Todor Todoroff 
to meet him there, but his invitation was declined. Miliukoff, 
overlooking this, continued to express his faith in the Bulgars. 
To a writer on the Neue Zurcher Zeitung (September 7th, 
1916) he said he doubted the possibility of a separate peace 
with Bulgaria, on account of the Roumanian intervention. 
He always makes a distinction, however, between King 
Ferdinand and his people*, for the Journal of September 8th, 
1916, expressed anew his hope of seeing Bulgaria change 
her policy. He still maintained, against the evidence of 
facts and Bulgarian denials, that Ferdinand's policy was 
not upheld by the people. He even mentions popular 
excitement, meetings against war, etc. 

MiliukofFs organ Rietch wrote on September 4th, 
1916 : 

"There remains Bulgaria. We said, immediately after 
Roumania entered the war, that according to all probability a 
• change in Bulgarian policy might be counted on, but it must 
not be expected before a turn in the military situation in the Balkans. 
. . . Bulgaria was not eager to fight against Roumania, and 
did not yield to the inevitable with a light heart. But the 
men at the head of the Bulgarian Government could not act 
otherwise. They are bound to Germany for life and death, in 
the true sense of the word. A change in Bulgarian policy is 
not possible until they have disappeared. They must be 
effaced from the Balkan political arena, together with the 
Germanophils who support them." 

This argument may be resumed as follows : The change 
in the direction of Bulgarian policy is quite probable, as 
soon as the military situation in the Balkans has become 
favourable to the Entente. 

The actual heads of the Government in Bulgaria cannot 
act otherwise than they are doing, and the change of policy 
presupposes their disappearance beforehand, together 
with that of the Germanic elements supporting them. 

This is tantamount to saying that Bulgaria will change 
her policy when the Entente, victorious, will have provoked 

* The efforts of Miliukoff to separate King Ferdinand from his 
people, and to have it believed that Bulgarian public opinion is in per- 
petual opposition to the actual regime, were cruelly denied in the Mir 
of September 26th, 1916. The Mir, the organ of Gueshoff and Todoroff — 
upon whom, precisely, Miliukoff had always counted as Russophils and 
personal friends — characterised his assertions as imaginary. Ferdinand's 
policy, according to the Mir, is approved of by all, and there has never 
been any dispute on the point. 



12 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the fall of the Coburg regime. Under these conditions, 
we agree, the conversion of Bulgaria is really quite probable, 
because it will take place not through persuasion, but 
through absolute necessity. 

Was the badly handled Russian intervention in the 
Dobrudja influenced by these illusions and errors ? We dare 
not affirm it, but it will not be without interest to reproduce 
here certain passages in Bulgarian and German journals 
of that period which tend to show that the Russians 
entertained many illusions on the resistance the Bulgars 
would offer in the Dobrudja. 

According to the Outro (September 9th, 1916) a Russian 
lieutenant-colonel made prisoner near Dobritch replied 
thus to questions put to him : 

" Before entering the Dobrudja we were persuaded that 
the Bulgarian soldiers would not fight against us, and would 
lay down their arms. On our first encounter with the Bulgarian 
army we perceived the erroneous character of our information 
on its unity and spirit." 

According to the Dnevnik of September 16th, a Russian 
colonel, wounded and a prisoner, said that the Russian 
soldiers had been assured that the Bulgars would not fight 
against them. The Dnevnik of September 18th published a 
declaration in the same sense emanating from a Russian 
functionary, a prisoner.* But the Echo de Bulgarie (Septem- 
ber 9th) explains best this strange aberration : 

" There is in Russia, wrote the Voenni Izvestia yesterday, 
a diplomacy which has always been hindered by its tradi- 
tional bureaucratism from understanding the springs that 
move the Bulgarian people. Official Russia was systematically 
led into error by its own ministers. They were persuaded at 
Petrograd that the Bidgarian people woidd be hypnotised by Russia 
dressed up in the mantle of Liberator ; they were certain that on 
the apparition only of a Russian army in Dobrudja the Bulgarian 
soldiers would lay down their arms. Far from throwing down 
their arms, the Bulgarian battalions rushed to the attack with 
a dash that defies imagination." 

In the article entitled " Lying Inventions " the Mir 
(September 13th, 1916) so describes some news in the Daily 
Telegraph announcing that " the Russophil party displays 

* The Munckner Neueste NachricMen of September 21st received 
the same information from Sofia, dated September 19th. 



MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 12 

great activity in Bulgaria," and that " Radoslavoff would 
seem to have invited Ghenadieff to enter the Cabinet, 
and it appears that the Russophil deputy Stamboliski is 
about to be set at liberty." 

Bulgarian journals continually rally the Russian opti- 
mists on their delusions. Optimism must have been 
really exaggerated in certain circles in Russia, if we are to 
judge from this passage in the Rietch from an article by its 
military critic, Colonel P. P., reproduced in the Narodni 
Prava of September 18th, 1916 : 

" We must not expect a tenacious resistance on the part 
of the Bulgars to the advance of the Roumanian forces ; . a 
powerful movement is spreading everywhere in Bulgaria directed 
against the Government and the Head of the State. Profiting 
by this situation, the Russophil parties are taking all necessary 
measures to prepare the ground for an understanding with 
Russia. The first Bulgarian checks before the advancing 
Roumanian troops will produce a revolution in Bulgaria." 

The Narodni Prava comments : " They have been greatly 
mistaken, the too competent military experts of Russia." 
The Kambana of September 27th, 1916, writes : 

" In Russia they expected that the Bulgarian Russophils 
would raise a revolution or at least prevent the Bulgarian soldiers 
from firing on the Russians. In this way the Russians hoped 
to penetrate, without hindrance, as far as Adrianople. . . . Public 
opinion in Russia was convinced that the Bulgarian army was 
filled with Ratko Dimitrieffs, and that the soldiers would put 
up their hands and throw themselves into the arms of the 
Russians as soon as the latter appeared to the sound of the 
Bulgarian hymn. The deception was all the greater when they 
were obliged to yield to the evidence of fact." 

Lastly, the Voenni Izvestia of October 15th wrote : 

" The legend of the magic power of Russia over the Bulgarian 
people is dissipated. The Russian armies fighting in the 
Dobrudja have freed Russian diplomacy from an illusion, the 
Entente from a miscalculation, and the Bulgarian heart from 
the last vestiges of a love unmerited."* 

* The Neue Freie Presse of September 13th, in a letter from Sofia 
entitled " The Russian Miscalculation," writes that many incidents 
which took place at the first encounter of Russians and Bulgars show 
how fondly the Russians hoped to lead the Bulgars to cease fighting. 
Near Dobritch a Russian colonel advanced and essayed to harangue the 
Bulgarian troops in the name of Slav brotherhood. He was answered 
by volleys from their rifles. In other places the Russian troops tried to 
influence the Bulgars by singing the Bulgarian National Anthem. All 
these attempts received " the response they deserved." 

In the same number of the Neue Freie Presse a colonel of the Bulgarian 



14 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

This illusion, which had a hold on the Russians in 1916, 
notwithstanding the deceptions and lessons of the autumn 
of 1915 — had at least some ground serving to attenuate its 
naivete ? Are we to believe that the Russians were fooled 
in 1916 as the Entente had been in 1915 ? We cannot be 
positive, but it will not be uninteresting to read a communi- 
cation on the subject in the Munchner Neueste Nachrichten 
of September 7th. This communique asserts in the first 
place that the Quadruple Entente Powers kept a mass of 
agents at Sofia. These sought to make capital out of the 
intervention of Roumania by intriguing to bring about a 
defection of Bulgaria to the detriment of her actual allies. 
However, knowing well that they would have had no 
success with King Ferdinand and his ministers, and per- 
ceiving that the small number of Bulgarian Russophils 
was exasperated by the Roumanian " second treason," the 
Entente agents, in order to make it appear that they were 
successful, resolved to deceive their employers and sent 
manufactured news to London and Paris. 

If we can trust the information of the Munich journal, 
these agents maintained that King Ferdinand was quite 
convinced of the approaching defeat of the Central Alliance 
which he had joined, but, like an intelligent man, it was his 
intention to abdicate in favour of his son Boris, who would 
not hesitate to play the part of liberator of his country, 
but only on the condition that the greater part of Serbian 
Macedonia should remain to Bulgaria and that the south- 
eastern Bulgarian frontier should be the Enos-Midia line. 
In this theatrical coup, Ghenadieff, as a Russophil, was 
destined to take charge of the Foreign Affairs of the country. 
The deputy Stamboliski, now in prison, would take an 
active part in the projected turning, by the side of Ghenadieff. 
King Ferdinand, with the object of preserving the throne 
of Bulgaria for his dynasty, would agree to adhere to all 
these manoeuvres, and his last journey to Hungary was 
closely connected with this new political gamble. Neverthe- 
less, adds the communique, things turned out otherwise 
than as predicted by the agents of the Entente, causing 
rude awakenings in the political circles of Paris and London. 

Let us end by the declaration of the Bulgarian deputy, 

Staff, Nikiforoff, demonstrates, in an article, the historical importance 
of the combats between Russians and Bulgars. He emphasises the 
martial ardour with which the Bulgars assaulted the Russian trenches, 
an ardour which many people thought impossible in a fight between 
" liberated and liberators." 



MISTAKES AND DECEPTIONS 15 

Peter Daskaloff, who affirms, under his signature in the 
Reichspost (September 12th, 1916), that the Roumanian 
Minister at Sofia, Derussi, had taken official steps for a 
separate peace with Bulgaria : 

" M. Derussi went to the Chief of the Civil Cabinet of H.M. 
the King and declared that Roumania was fighting only against 
Austria, and had no hostile intentions towards Bulgaria ; on 
the contrary, said the good M. Derussi, Roumania is animated 
by friendly feelings to Bulgaria. She does not contest the 
new Bulgarian acquisitions in Macedonia, and is even disposed 
to execute a rectification of frontiers in the Dobrudja, on condi- 
tion that Bulgaria breaks off her alliance with the Central 
Empires and rallies to the Entente. He added a further condi- 
tion, the dismissal of the actual Cabinet. The Entente again 
miscalculated concerning us. The joy is indescribable through- 
out the country, and it is greater to-day, because we have 
proved that the Bulgarian soldier is capable of defending his 
home and fatherland against all comers, even against the 
Russians."* 

All these declarations of Bulgarian personages and all 
the articles of the Sofia press, even allowing for the exaggera- 
tion of facts, prove in every way that the naive illusions 
of 1915 subsisted in spite of the Bulgarian coup in that year, 
and had increased in 1916, to the great astonishment of 
the people of Sofia, whose practical minds did not compre- 
hend this political romanticism. 

* The Neue Freie Presse (November 30th, 1916) wrote : " At the 
sitting of the Sobranie of November 29th Radoslavoff declared that the 
Roumanian Minister at Sofia, Derussi, had spread the rumour of a possible 
entente between Roumania and Bulgaria. According to Derussi, the 
Roumanian Government was ready to cede the Dobrudja, annexed in 
1 91 3, to Bulgaria, on condition that the latter adopted a passive attitude 
in the event of a military action against Austria-Hungary on the part 
of Roumania. Derussi had asked to be received in audience by Rado- 
slavoff, but the latter had not accorded him the interview he demanded. 



CHAPTER II 

WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR ? 

There are errors in politics which can be explained, and 
even excused : the data on which plans must be based are 
often so slight and so complex that it is almost impossible 
to disentangle them. The mistakes of diplomacy in Balkan 
politics have not this excuse : they arise, for the most part, 
from ignorance of the facts themselves. 

Much ink has been poured out over the Balkan question, 
above all during the second half of the last century ; never- 
theless, among all the innumerable reports and opinions 
on the Peninsula, few documents of value are to be found. 
They consist chiefly of notes of travel by Slavists and 
Russian Slavophils, French writers and travellers, German 
geographers and English humanitarians. All these writers 
had for their object, above all, the exposure of the lamentable 
state of Christians under the Ottoman yoke, and this special 
aim necessarily restricted their observations and deductions, 
even when they possessed political interest. 

Their notions on the history of the Balkan Peninsula 
were rather vague, and their study of the temperaments 
and characters of the peoples who inhabit it were only super- 
ficial. On this account all combinations relating to the 
Eastern Question sinned through a mistaken conception 
of the facts. Every manifestation having to do with the 
Balkans found expression in pity for the Christians subjected 
to the Turks, and this compassion was interwoven with 
the special tendencies of each power. Being the last 
remaining under the Turkish yoke, the Bulgars were the last 
among Balkan Christians to attract the interest which 
Europe felt for the slaves of the Ottomans. By their 
sufferings they personified the sufferings of all the sub- 
jugated. And as the Bulgarian question was the most acute 
and the most pressing at the moment when it was thought 
to solve the Balkan question generally (1877-78), this 

16 



WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR? 17 

coincidence of facts raised and generalised the Bulgarian 
role in Balkan affairs. Only by these circumstances, and 
by the particular tendencies of Russian policy, can we 
explain the Treaty of San Stefano, the most fantastic act 
in history. And consequent on its persistent ignorance 
of Balkan matters, European diplomacy has not yet been 
able to free itself from the suggestion which possessed it 
forty years ago. All Bulgarian megalomania is based on 
that suggestion. 

After obtaining quasi-independence, the Bulgarians 
continued to identify their question with the question of 
the oppressed Christians in general. They cleverly made the 
most of their two first successes ; on the interest which 
Europe took in them through humanity, they grafted their 
own political interests ; afterwards, they tried to provide 
the San Stefano conception, devoid of a real foundation, 
with an ethnographic basis. To attain this end, they chose 
any means, however unscrupulous. 

Bulgarian aims, quite arbitrary, are not fixed, and often 
go beyond the limits of the Great Bulgaria as it was con- 
ceived at San Stefano. Bulgarian pretensions oscillate 
according to circumstances and the necessities of the 
moment. They go so far as to include the greater part of 
the Balkan Peninsula between the Black Sea, the iEgean 
and the Adriatic, between Mount Olympus and the Delta 
of the Danube, from the Morava, and even Belgrade, through 
Krugievatz, Kossovo, Dibra, to the Albanian coast. They 
extend even over Thrace to the vicinity of Constantinople, 
sometimes taking in Constantinople itself. . . . The field of 
Bulgarian combinations is vast ; these are based sometimes 
on Bulgarian historic rights, sometimes on the old adminis- 
strative divisions of the Ottoman Empire, or on ethnogra- 
phic, strategic and political reasons. Every one of these 
arguments, or all of them together at need, leave an open 
field for the most varied schemes. 

On this account it would be inexact to speak of a 
Bulgarian national policy, in the sense of a matured and 
definite conception, attesting, on the part of a people, 
knowledge of its proportions, its role, and the surest way 
of accomplishing it. Tardily liberated from the yoke, 
by the aid of others, Bulgaria has not yet been able to seek 
inspiration for her political ideas in an awakened national 
consciousness. The people, who have as little influence on 
foreign policy as on home questions, are led either by 



18 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

authority or by a small number of professional politicians, 
or, on the rare occasions when they are allowed a little 
freedom, by their still barbarous instincts. 

The policy of this nation, practical and, as its friends 
say, devoid of sentiment and prejudices of race, of religion, 
is dominated by calculations rather than by ideals. It 
would be vain to seek in it consistent notions. Neverthe- 
less, if we attempt to discover in the long series of adven- 
tures and deviations which make up past and present 
Bulgarian policy, a system or a leading idea, it would be 
this : Bulgaria desires all she thinks it possible to obtain 
at a given moment. 

'* 

Why did Bulgaria go to war in September, 1915, and 
what are the aims of her policy ? 

The reply of the Bulgars themselves has varied in the 
course of the year which has elapsed. In September, 
1915, they began by invoking the necessity of incorporating 
Macedonia. Intoxicated by success, they abandoned this 
initial reason, little by little, and conceived hopes far more 
vast. They saw themselves already playing a part in the 
world of Mittel-Europa. But success not proving con- 
tinuous, the future remaining obscure, deceived in their 
hopes, they set themselves to abate their demands. Having 
almost forgotten Macedonia for a time, they came back to 
it anew, as the Germany of Bernhardi . returned to the 
notions of humanity and pacificism. 

Hardly had tens of thousands of pamphlets been distri- 
buted throughout Bulgaria concerned with the liberation 
of Macedonia " reduced to slavery," than the Frankfurter 
Zeitung of October 15th, 1915, assigned two other objects 
to the Bulgarian adventure : 

The annihilation of Serbia, 

A common frontier with Austria-Hungary. 

The Frankfurter Zeitung wrote : 

" With its accustomed habit of decision, Bulgaria, in this 
war, has united its cause, and the future of the nation, with the 
cause of Austria-Hungary and Germany, whose victories are a 
sure guarantee of a better future for Bulgaria. Its object is 
not only to conquer Macedonia, a conquest which the King of 
Bulgaria emphasises very particularly in his manifesto, but 
also to extend its boundaries to Central Europe, and thus obtain 
free passage for its agricultural produce to the markets of the 
Central Empires." 



WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR? 19 

A Sofia lawyer, Ivan Dimitroff, was at this time at 
Geneva on a special mission. Charged with a Bulgarophil 
propaganda, he published articles signed with his name 
or the pseudonym Ivan Strogoff.* Questioned by a Serbian 
personage, who was astonished that Bulgaria exercised 
pressure on Serbia at the very moment when the latter 
yielded on all points, Dimitroff replied : 

" Even in the absence of all other motives, Bulgaria is 
bound to make war and take her place by the side of the Central 
Empires, first because Russia intends to occupy the Dardanelles, 
and afterwards because Serbia is going to expand and become 
powerful. The Bulgars must prevent these two events at all 
costs." 

Made arrogant by military success, the Bulgarian 
press expressed these opinions openly and repeatedly 
a little later. But this little detail must be borne in mind, 
among others, precisely on account of its date (autumn, 
1915), because it shows that these ideas predominated at 
Sofia at a time when the Entente still nursed the illusion 
that Bulgaria could be won over by concessions in Mace- 
donia. The fact that the real intentions of the Sofia 
Government were so widely known shows that they were 
already an open secret. f 

It is of interest to note another early indication of the 
Bulgarian alliance with the Central Empires. It is an 
article on the role of Bulgaria in the European war in the 
Neue Freie Presse of May 5th, 1915. Radoslavoff declared 
then that the Bulgarian nation had gone to the extreme 
limit of patience and concessions with respect to Macedonia. 
" We are actually succouring and nourishing three hundred 
thousand Macedonians escaped from the tyranny and abuses 
of the Serbs. We shall be obliged at last to go to their aid." 
This occurred seven months before Bulgarian mobilisation. 
The Bulgarians were unanimous on the question of Mace- 
donia. Radoslavoff said, in the course of the same interview, 
that he wanted a policy tending to reparation for the injus- 
tice inflicted by the treaty of Bucharest. " Moreover, it 

* The author of this book had occasion to enter into argument 
with M. Strogoff. (See Tribune de Geneve, September 16th, 1915.) 

f The Vorwarts of November 21st, 1915, publishes an interview 
with the Bulgarian Minister, Kolucheff, by a member of the staff of the 
Turkish journal, Tasfir-i-Efkiar. Kolucheff declared that Bulgaria 
extends her aspirations beyond Macedonia to the Morava Valley and the 
cities of Nish and Vrania. The Minister Tontcheff, on his part, spoke 
in several interviews of the liberation of the Bulgars in Macedonia and 
Serbia. 



20 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

seemed to him evident that the existence of Bulgaria would 
be menaced by a Serbia enlarged by the provinces of Bosnia, 
Herzegovina, Croatia, Banat, Slavonia, and all the territories 
generously promised by the Entente." And the President 
of the Council of Bulgaria was not alone in saying this. 
A superior officer of the General Staff told the same journa- 
list : " A Serbia stronger than the present Bulgaria would 
be a danger for us. It is a question of our existence, and 
we must take measures to secure our future." 

In the beginning of September, 1915, the same journalist 
passed through Sofia on his way from Turkey. On his 
return to Vienna he was able to write, with a knowledge 
of the facts, the following : 

" Bulgaria, in taking part in the European war, apropos 
of Macedonia, has rendered a great service to the Central Empires. 
I spent nearly seven months at Constantinople, and with the 
Turkish troops at the Dardanelles, and I can assert that the 
conquest of territory joining on to Central Europe had become 
an absolute necessity. The free passage of the Danube, the 
Belgrade-Nish railway, and transit through Bulgaria, have 
furnished Turkey with the precise means she needed to obtain 
success at Gallipoli and in Irak. It would be hard to find a Bulgar 
in disagreement with the policy of the present Government. At 
the last session of the Sobranie the Government met with next 
to no opposition." 

The Central Empires, for that matter, must have been 
sure of the sentiments of the Bulgars and of their real 
intentions, for some considerable time. The article in 
Az Ujsag (Count Tisza's organ) of October 17th, 1916, 
shows this clearly : 

" With admirable endurance and ability, King Ferdinand 
and his councillor Radoslavoff, have observed the neutrality 
of Bulgaria for fourteen months. Never have a king and a 
statesman been burdened with a task greater and more delicate, 
and heavier with responsibility, than during these last three 
months, in which the heart has been forced to contain itself 
whilst the idea of rallying to the Central Empires was ripening. 
It was necessary to conceal and keep secret the true intentions of 
Bulgarian policy. The diplomats of the Entente must not know 
anything until the moment came for the German and Austro- 
Hungarian troops to advance along the Danube and the Save, thus 
allowing Bulgaria to avow her aims openly." 

* * 

Two ideas dominate all the Bulgarian declarations : 
the danger of a Russia established on the Dardanelles, 



WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR? 21 

and the menace of an extended Serbia. The liberal parties 
(Stamboulovists, Radoslavists, Tontchevists) were always 
opposed to Russia laying her hands on the Dardanelles. 
We find their arguments again in the Memorandum, of 
which 50,000 copies were distributed by the Bulgarian 
Government. The greater part of it was reproduced in 
the Frankfurter Zeitung (October 8th, 1915). Tontcheff 
hastens to declare in the A z Est of October 26th : 

" What a childish notion it is, that we should not raise our 
voice against the annexation of Constantinople by the Russians, 
an annexation that would have meant a menace to our inde- 
pendence ! Russia has exaggerated the value and force of the 
panslavist idea. How could she have believed that we -should 
remain quiet ? " 

We meet with the same Russophobe tendency in a 
declaration made by the Bulgarian Minister at Bucharest, 
M. Simon Radeff, to the correspondent of the Berliner 
Tageblatt (April 20th, 1916). Radeff said : 

" The chief motive which has led Bulgaria to an alliance with 
the Central Powers is the need of keeping Russia away from the 
Straits." 

Radeff repeated this ten days afterwards to the corre- 
spondent of the Az Est (April 30th, 1916). 

The Bulgars are not less concerned about the danger 
of an extended Serbia. Alexander Kiproff (former Deputy 
and Secretary of the Sobranie) says in a pamphlet* : 

" It has been observed with justice, that if Bulgaria had 
taken part in the war by the side of the Quadruple Entente, 
the latter being victorious, Serbia would, none the less, have 
expanded in an exclusive and inordinate way ; she would have 
acquired Bosnia, Herzegovina, the Banat, Croatia, Slavonia, 
Srem (Syrmia), and Dalmatia to the Adriatic. Under these 
conditions, what would have been left for Bulgaria ? There may 
be differences of opinion as to the decision Bulgaria ought to 
have taken, but it is certain that no power in the world could 
have constrained her to fight for the greatness and prosperity of 
Serbia." 

Under the title, " The Part of Bulgaria in the Great 
World War," Gheorgoff, a Professor in the University, 
published in the Europaische Staats und Wirtschafts Zeitung 
a careful study of the politics of the Balkan States, especially 
of Bulgaria : 

" Bulgaria, alone of all the Balkan countries, had no interests 

* " The Truth about Bulgaria," p. 27. Berne, 1916. 

C 



22 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

opposed to the Triple Alliance. For this reason, after the first 
Balkan war, the policy of the Central Powers sought to gain 
Bulgaria. ... So Count Berchtold devoted himself to the 
task. And since the recent Balkan events the best Bulgarian 
politicians, having at their head King Ferdinand himself, have 
been convinced that Bulgarian national interests required 
Bulgaria to put herself in the future by the side of the Central 
Powers. For, by so doing, alone could Bulgaria hinder a too 
great extension of Serbia. ... It is not so much the necessity 
of being with the probable victor in this war, which has pre- 
vailed with us, as a cool and reasoned calculation of the real 
interests of the country. Even if the Entente appeared to 
have the better chance of coming out of the struggle Victorious, 
Bulgaria would not have decided with a light heart to contribute 
to the victory of the Entente, which would have as a result in the 
Balkans the expansion of countries hostile to ours. On this 
account also all the solicitations of the Entente addressed to 
Bulgaria were bound to fail. Nevertheless, Bulgaria had to be 
prudent. There was a moment when, if the Entente States 
had known that Bulgaria was lost to their cause, they could 
have incited against her the other Balkan countries, as they 
did in 1913." 

But, concludes Gheorgoff, after having explained this 
point, " when the victories of the Allies made it possible 
at last to settle accounts with the immediate instigators 
of the European war, the time came also for Bulgaria to 
attain with small risk the object which she and the Central 
Powers had to pursue in the Balkans. And Bulgaria threw 
off the reserve which short-sighted politicians could not under- 
stand, and took her place at the side of the Central Powers." 
{Echo de Bulgarie, June 16th, 1916.) 

The quite recent declarations made by Radoslavoff 
to the American, Colonel Emerson, a military writer, throw 
a very full light on the motives which decided the Bulgarian 
line of action (Vossische Zeitung, January 25th, 1917) : 

" If Russia succeeded in reaching Constantinople through 
the Dobrudja, she would be forced later to take its Balkan 
fortifications, from which the Bulgarians should never be able 
to drive her. Then we should have to content ourselves either 
to become entirely Russian or a buffer State. These are the 
reasons which will never allow Bulgaria to consent to the Russians 
laying hands on Constantinople and the Dardanelles, if she 
wishes to remain independent. When Sazonov uttered for 
the first time in public the words ' conquest of Constantinople,' 
long before Bulgaria was compelled by the Russian menace 
to enter the lists, / communicated confidentially with M, Sazonov, 



WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR? 23 

through the Russian Minister at Sofia, M. Savinsky, that it was 
impossible for Bulgaria to adhere to his plans, seeing that an 
eventual advance of Russia across Bulgaria would gravely 
imperil our vital interests. He would not listen to our just 
objections. Notwithstanding our categoric refusal, M. Savinsky 
asked me, some days later, if Bulgaria would be disposed to 
shut her eyes in case Russia were to disembark in our Black 
Sea ports, Varna or Burgas, troops so-called ' pacific,' as England 
and France did afterwards at Salonica. This disembarkation 
would have had for its object a rapid advance on Constantinople, 
through our territory — -an attack which nothing would have 
hindered. I then explained to the Russian Minister that the 
waters of Varna and Burgas were mined, and that our maritime 
and land forces would oppose any attempt at military disem- 
barkation. Savinsky, very much disappointed, then declared 
that the placing of mines in our waters was a breach of neutrality 
and an unfriendly act towards Russia. The Russians, in spite 
of the very clear warnings I had given to M. Savirisky, remained 
blind right up to our definite intervention in the world war. They 
refused obstinately to believe that we should defend, even 
against them, the vital interests of Bulgaria. There were, 
even until the overthrow of Roumania, Russians dnd Roumanians, 
supposed to be intelligent, who persisted in believing that we 
Bidgarians could, in spite of all, throw in our lot with them." 

These declarations are clear enough. 

The journalist Roda, in the Vossische Zeitung of April 
9th, 1916, cites the words of General Jekoff, who told him 
that " Bulgarian war aims were identical with those of the 
Central Powers " and •" Serbia has become nothing more 
than a geographical expression." 

The Narodni Prava (August 26th, 1916) wrote in the 
same sense : 

" The European group, in which are our mortal enemies, 
wished and wishes still to lay hands on the Balkans, the Black 
Sea, Constantinople, and the Dardanelles, and to form artificially 
a Great Serbia at the expense of Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people. 
Our future, the vital interests of Bulgaria, its existence, and 
its development could not and never can be reconciled to the 
tendencies of Anglo-French and Russian politics which would 
bring evil on her. The question of the future of Bulgaria was 
clearly put : perish, or unite and secure the place in the Balkans 
belonging to her." 

An article by Professor H. S. Gheorgieff, former Secretary 
of Rizoff in Rome, which appeared in the Neue Freie Presse 
of September 6th, 1916, is edifying : 

" The majority of Bulgarian statesmen felt already in 1913 



24 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

that the policy of the Balkan Alliance was only a transitory episode, 
and that when the time arrived for the great European settlement, 
Bulgaria must take her place by the side of the Central Empires. 

"Her geographical situation imposed on Bulgaria her part 
in the world war. She was bound to fight by the side of the 
Central Empires and Turkey, because the integrity of Bulgarian 
territory does not allow her to become a Russian bridge to 
Constantinople, whilst for us Bulgars it is perhaps of greater 
importance than for the Turks themselves that Constantinople 
remains Turkish, and that Russia does not fortify herself on 
the Dardanelles. The intervention of, Bulgaria on the side 
of the Central Empires will contribute naturally to victory, 
but even if the victory of the Central Empires had not been 
evident, Bulgaria was bound to rally to the Central Empires 
and Turkey. . . . This is not only because of the reasons of 
which we have spoken, but on account of the following : 

" i. Bulgaria, from the moment of her creation, has taken 
thought for her national unity which cannot be realised if she 
is on the side of Russia ; 

" 2. Serbia could not be so extensive as Russian plans con- 
templated. 

"The blood shed in common with the Central Empires 
and Turkey will transform this political alliance into an alliance 
of sentiment. Constantinople must remain Turkish, the Bulgarian 
people feels it. . . . 

" Bulgaria, free, independent, nationally united, cannot 
exist otherwise than in alliance with the Central Empires and 
Turkey." 

Rizoff's secretary affirms, therefore : 

" That the Balkan Alliance was only a transitory episode in 
Bulgarian eyes, and that at the moment of the great European 
settlement Bulgaria was bound to side with the Central Powers ; 

" That the role of Bulgaria in the world war has been dictated 
by her geographical position, and that this alliance is a question 
of interests as much as of inclination ; 

" That Bulgaria would have been obliged to march with 
the Central Powers, even if their victory had not appeared 
probable, because, in any case, Bulgaria could not have accepted 
a Serbia extended to the proportions promised, nor Russian domina- 
tion of Constantinople." 

The views of M. Gheorgieff are completed by the declara- 
tions of M. Tontcheff, Minister of Finance, to a correspon- 
dent of the A z Est (September 15 th, 1916) : 

" Little Bulgaria is allied with the Central Empires. She 
has done this, not from commercial motives, not because this 
alliance offered more to her than others, not because she was 
convinced that it would triumph, but she has bound up her 



WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR? 25 

destinies with those of the Central Empires because she wished 
the latter to be victorious. I beg of you particularly to emphasise 
this, because it affords the greatest moral satisfaction, and 
because it will serve as a basis for our liberty." 

Therefore two things are insisted on as principal motives : 
(i) opposition to the expansion of Serbia, (2) opposition 
to the establishment of Russia on the Dardanelles. 

* * 

* 

The anniversaries of Bulgarian mobilisation (September 
23rd) and the entrance of Bulgaria into the war 
(October 14th) were made the occasion of numerous articles 
and declarations. 

Let us begin by quoting the declarations of official 
personages. First, the President of the Council, M. Rado- 
slavoff, in the Vossische Zeitung of October 10th, 1916, 
wrote : 

" We end this year well satisfied with the results obtained, 
and persuaded that, according to the tenor of the treaties con- 
cluded with our allies, we shall keep irrevocably all the territory 
conquered. The object Bulgaria had in view is, in general, 
attained, but much remains to be done in order to assure what 
we have obtained. ..." 

The German and Turkish Ministers at Sofia were also 
interviewed by the correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung. 
The German Minister, after lavishing praise on the Bulgarian 
king and people, observing that "the Bulgars had proved 
friends in whom one could place one's trust " (Vertraute- 
freunde), declared that the desire of Germany was to see 
the Bulgars strong and well prepared, in order that they 
might remain the guardians of the Gates of the East, and 
protect the normal activity of German merchants, scholars and 
artists." 

The Turkish Minister, on his side, declared : 

" A Russian Victory would have meant the loss of Turkish 

independence. Bulgaria had passed through the same peril. 

An Entente victory would have created a great Serbia and a great 

Roumania, and would have brought the Russians to Constantinople. 

Hence springs the community of interests between us and the 

Bulgars. ..." 

The Vice-President of the Bulgarian Parliament, Dr. 
Momtchiloff, published his interview in the Pester Lloyd 
of October 15th : 

" Soon a year will have elapsed since the allied troops raised 



26 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

their hands to crush the country of Serbian brigands : notwith- 
standing a desperate defence, victory remained on our side." 

The semi-official Echo de Bulgarie of October 23rd, 1916, 
wrote : 

" Bulgaria was promised that her claims should be taken 
into consideration, in as large a measure as possible. But 
Bulgaria could not admit a new discussion of problems settled 
by a series of treaties and international acts, and she declined 
all bargaining over an object sacred for all the race. Her belief 
was inveterate in a day of reparations." 

The Bulgarian press celebrated the anniversary of the 
intervention of Bulgaria in the same emphatic tone. 

The Echo de Bulgarie of October 14th, 1916, reminded 
its readers that " Bulgaria has contributed powerfully 
towards a victorious peace for the Alliance of Central 
Europe and Turkey." 

The Narodni Prava wrote : 

" In the course of this year of victories, Bulgaria has effected 
her unification. To-day she is complete, from the Black Sea 
to the Albanian Alps, from the Danube to the Mgean." 

And in its issue of October 16th, 1916, the Narodni 
Prava said : 

" The fundamental idea of Russian policy in the Balkans 
has been forgotten : through the Balkans to Constantinople ; 
and in consequence it has also been forgotten that those who 
want Constantinople and the Balkans do not want a strong 
and independent Bulgaria. Bulgaria entered the war as an ally 
of the Central Powers, because it had "become evident that Russia 
woidd never alter her policy of conquest and abandon her vital 
interests to please Bulgarian statesmen. A year has passed 
away since the beginning of war. The Bulgarian armies have 
fulfilled their duty, the Bulgarian nation has reached its natural 
boundaries, ethnical and political. At length we see the end of 
the numerous errors, incertitudes, and legends which for forty 
years hindered the quiet consolidation of Bulgarian indepen- 
dence." 

The journals we have quoted are official, or organs of 
Government parties. One might have hoped, perhaps, 
that the others — those which express the opinions of parties, 
so-called friends of the Entente in 1916 — would write rather 
differently. Not at all. They are not to be distinguished 
from the organs of Radoslavoff. 

Thus the Mir, Gueshoff 's organ, writes : 

" Two months have sufficed for the crushing of Serbia. We 
cannot fail to be satisfied with the results obtained in the course 



WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR? 27 

of this year. In two months we have attained our object, whilst 
the Entente, after a noisy preparation, began its offensive 
against us in the month of August, and is now in the same 
positions as at starting." 

And we read in the Preporetz, the organ of Malinoff : 
" The first year is the year of glorious deeds and actions. The 
coming year we shall have to defend and keep what we have 
gained. The defence demands new efforts and new sacrifices. 
Our gains are very dear, we must preserve them at all costs." 

The Narod (Socialist) of October 16th thus expresses 
itself : 

" At the end of the first year of war the Bulgarian people in 
arms possesses precious acquisitions. The costly sacrifices 
Bulgaria has made in Macedonia and the Dobrudja are justified 
by the well-being and gratitude of hundreds and hundreds of 
thousands of liberated souls." 

* * 

* 

Lastly, two characteristic facts : 

Nobody is ignorant of the fact that Serbia was trea- 
cherously attacked by the Bulgars in October, 1915. That 
did not hinder the Narodni Prava (organ of Radoslavoff) 
from asserting on October 14th, 1916, that 

" The enemy personified in treacherous Serbia should receive 
exemplary chastisement, because he had attacked our country 
also." 

And the Voenni Izvestia, the organ of the' Ministry of War, 
wrote on October 15th, 1916 : 

" To our good faith, Serbia responded by provocation, and 
then, after assembling troops on our frontier, attacked us just 
a year ago. . . ." 

The absurd lie is repeated that Bulgaria made war 
because she was attacked by Serbia.* 

* To form an idea of the method resorted to by the Bulgars in their 
documents, it will suffice to read once more their explanations on the 
manner in which Bulgaria " was attacked by Serbia " in the war of 191 3 
also. In a review of the book by Gantcho Tzenoff (" Russia and Serbian 
Tendencies to Conquest") the Narodni Prava of August 30th, 1916, gives 
the following explanations : 

" General Savoff has been accused of having committed the greatest 
crime in the world, because he gave orders secretly to attack the Serbs. 
It appears, indeed, that he may have done something in this sense, but it 
was a preventive measure, a piece of good strategy, to forestall a blow, 
an attack on the part of the Serbs. Here, for that matter, is the text 
of his order of the day : ' To prevent our inactivity in face of Serbian 
provocations from depressing the spirit of the army, and, on the other 
hand, that our silence may not encourage the enemy still more, I order 
you to attack on all the line, and with the greatest energy, but not to 



28 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

To this false reason for Bulgarian intervention, the 
Narodni Prava, in the same number of October 14th, 1916, 
adds a new pretext as false as the preceding ones, namely, 
the stubborn obstinacy of Serbia, never disposed to com- 
promise or concession. This grievance the Bulgars begin 
to repeat more and more. A year after the war they try 
to justify their intervention by a still more absurd falsehood : 
that Bulgaria was dragged into the war by the refusal of 
Serbia to accord compensations to her, in conformity with 
the demands of her allies.* 

discover your forces completely, and to cease fighting directly you have 
succeeded in establishing yourselves firmly at Krivolak, on the right 
bank of the Bregalnitza, on ridge 350 . . etc. You must open fire 
in the evening and continue all night, and at dawn deliver a powerful 
attack on the whole line. This operation will be carried out to-morrow, 
the 16th of this month (June).' " 

" This passage shows clearly," says the Narodni Prava, " that it 
was not the aim of Savoff to declare war on Serbia, but to encourage our 
soldiers to occupy certain strategic points, and to make a political demon- 
stration." 

"... The Serbians, who had already decided to fight us, profited 
by our demonstrative and strategic attack, commenced the war, and 
threw the responsibility on us." 

The Narodni Prava acknowledges that the Bulgars attacked first. 
But it considers that the Serbs were the true assailants notwithstanding, 
because they took the Bulgarian attack seriously, an attack purely pre- 
ventive, made to occupy strategic points and to reconnoitre the terrain. . . . 
This is the singular logic which they continually use to prop up their 
impudent assertions. 

The Narodni Prava of June 21st must also be quoted by way of a 
curiosity. " It was Sazonov who made it possible for the Serbs to reject 
the ultimatum of Austria, and to invade Austro-Hungarian territory two 
days before the declaration of war, just as France entered German territory 
a day before official notification of hostilities." 

When we read such enormities in the Bulgarian semi-official journal 
we can form an idea of the mentality and the political morality reigning 
at Sofia. 

* To this lie M. Pachitch replied in an interview with the corre- 
spondent of the Petit Parisien (Serbian Press Bureau, Corfu, February 
17th, 1917). 

M. Pachitch said : "At the beginning of the war Serbia proposed 
to Roumania and Greece to make a joint declaration to Bulgaria that 
they were ready to proceed to a revision of the treaty of Bucharest in 
her favour. In her own name, Serbia declared to Russia that, without 
waiting for the answer of the other signatories to the treaty of Bucharest, 
she was prepared to make territorial concessions to Bulgaria to the east 
of the Vardar. When Turkey entered the war Serbia invited Bulgaria 
to discharge her debt to Russia, her deliverer, and promised territorial 
concessions, if she would do so. Bulgaria refused to enter into negotia- 
tions, invoking as a pretext the neutrality she would violate in taking 
the side of Russia. At length, some time before the Bulgarian mobilisa- 
tion, when the Entente approached the Serbian Government with the 
view of obtaining territorial concessions in favour of Bulgaria, Serbia 
consented to make territorial concessions in the interests of Balkan 
concord and the prompt cessation of the war. The sacrifices which she 



WHY DID THE BULGARS GO TO WAR? 29 

Why were these two falsehoods revived after so 
long a silence ? Because, since the shattering of German 
hopes at Verdun., and the Austro-German defeat in Galicia 
and Bukovina, Bulgaria began to return slowly from her 
world ambitions to her Balkan policy. After noisy mani- 
festations of union with Mittel-Europa, after a succession 
of pretensions each loftier than the last, based not on rights 
but conquests, Bulgaria, beginning to doubt her invincibility 
and that of her allies, called to mind justice and arguments 
other than that of force. This climbing down found 
expression in the semi-official journals by a new use of the 
same falsehoods which Ferdinand of Coburg had employed 
exactly a year before in his manifesto to his people. 

The clearest contradiction to these fantastic inventions 
was given by the Entente and Serbia in 1915, when they 
offered large territorial compensations to Bulgaria, an offer 
proposed by the Entente, accepted by Serbia, and known 
to all the world. During the year which has elapsed, 
this contradiction has been supplemented by that given by 
the Bulgars themselves, who have declared and demonstrated 
repeatedly that they did not take part in the war to obtain 
Macedonia. Macedonia ? They had almost ceased to 
speak of' it. What the real motives of Bulgaria were 
the Bulgars have shown clearly on numerous occasions. 

promised were enormous. She was ready to cede territory also west 
of the Vardar, and almost all the famous line of the treaty of 1912, in- 
cluding Monastir, excepting only Prilep, and under the reserve of a common 
frontier with Greece. We know how Bulgaria responded. She trea- 
cherously attacked Serbia, and declared war against the Entente. It was 
after entering the war that Bulgaria explained her repeated refusals. 
The Government exposed its game through an article in the Narodni 
Prava. It stated clearly that the pretext Bulgaria had put forward 
was not true, that if she had wished she might have accepted the Serbian 
concessions as fully satisfying all her pretensions in Macedonia. If, 
notwithstanding, she had engaged in war against the Entente, it was 
because she could not permit the installation of Russia at Constantinople, 
and the expansion of Serbia." 



CHAPTER III 

TO ANNIHILATE SERBIA 

Ethnically the smallest (after the Albanians) of the Balkan 
nationalities, Bulgaria desired nevertheless to conquer the 
first place in the Peninsula. To succeed in this, she had, 
naturally, to eliminate Serbia, ethnically the largest. 

For this reason the question of the existence of a Serbia 
dominates all Bulgarian discussions of the situation, all 
declarations and plans concerning the condition of affairs 
to be established after the war. The reconstitution of a 
sovereign Serbia under any form is excluded from Bulgarian 
schemes. Satisfied, beyond all expectation, with the 
complete overthrow of Serbia, the Bulgars have become 
so accustomed to the situation created by that catastrophe 
that they think only of rendering it permanent, and they 
no longer comprehend that there may have been among 
themselves some people who judged that the co-existence 
of a Bulgaria and a Serbia or a united Yugo-slavia was a 
possibility. This implacable Serbophobia has become so 
general during the first year of Bulgarian intervention 
that even the authors of the Serbo-Bulgar entente of 1912 
are obliged to declare publicly that in reality they never 
desired a lasting accord with Serbia. 

One of the principal participants in the Serbo-Bulgar 
negotiations of 1912, Dimitri Rizoff, says openly that the 
agreement of 1912 was already considered at Sofia as a 
transitory episode within a year of its conclusion.* The 
signatories of the Serbo-Bulgarian alliance are obliged to 
avow that they themselves never counted seriously on it. 

The Bulgars entered into the Serbian agreement of 1912 
solely to further purely Bulgarian aims, and Gueshoff's 
organ, Mir (April 23rd, 1916), says so openly, in defending 
the policy of the national party in 1913 : 

"... We made use of the Serbs to attain our object : the 

* See the article of Gheorgieff in the Neue Freie Presse already 
quoted. 

30 



TO ANNIHILATE SERBIA 31 

defeat of our common enemy, and the realisation of our own 
ideal, the reconstitution of the Bulgaria of San Stefano. Nobody 
doubted, the Ministers not more than others, that the Serbs 
would be jealous. . . . But was it possible to make war with- 
out the help of the Serbs ? No ; the military leaders said it 
positively, and things would have turned out very badly for 
the Ministers then in power, and for Bulgaria also, if men, 
incompetent in military questions, had succeeded in imposing 
their will. It was not our alliance with Serbia which brought 
about our catastrophe. On the contrary, thanks to that alliance, 
we were able to liberate Macedonia. No other State would have 
aided us to rescue it from its masters (Turkey), and we could 
not do it alone. And if Macedonia had not been taken by the 
Serbs it would not have been possible for us to free it. We repeat 
that it was not the Serbo-Bulgarian Alliance, but the Serbo- 
Greek Alliance, which brought on us the catastrophe of 1913. 
We (the national party) should have prevented that aUiance, 
if our adversaries (the other Bulgarian parties) had not united, 
all of them without exception, to render impossible the only 
policy which could have saved us : arbitration with Greece." 

Those who had been regarded formerly as Serbophils 
had no longer the courage to defend, even theoretically 
and retrospectively, an understanding among the Balkan 
nations, the basis of the policy they had followed towards 
Serbia in 1912 and 1913. They tried to demonstrate, on 
the contrary, that the Serbo-Bulgarian Alliance had been 
only a momentary necessity. 

In January, 1913, Gueshoff wanted, before everything, 
to come to an understanding with the Greeks, an under- 
standing which would have obliged isolated Serbia to 
capitulate before the Bulgarian will.* And he regrets that 
the obstinacy of his political adversaries made the com- 
bination impossible. It is evident that to-day he is unable 
to prove the incontestable utility of the understanding 
with Serbia, since he has been prevented from carrying into 
effect the action which should have followed it. 

This timid apology for a policy of understanding with 

* At the Conference of London, 1912-13, Daneff began by hatching 
an intrigue with the Greeks against the Serbs. Afterwards trying the 
same game with the Serbs against the Greeks. Venizelos and Nova-' 
kovitch succeeded in unmasking Bulgarian intentions and reducing 
their intrigues to nullity. Daneff's ability in weaving plots, moreover, 
was paralysed by an indomitable rapacity. The Bulgars wanted to 
secure Salonica in one direction and Dibra in the other. The Mir of 
March 4th, 1916, openly acknowledges that the pi-etension to Salonica 
brought failure to the negotiations intended to cement an understanding 
with Greece. 



32 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Serbia is the most moderate of all the opinions which, in the 
spring of 1916, were pronounced on the subject. 

When the Austrians, after their defeat at Tzer (August, 
1914) were reinforced by new and imposing units, the Bul- 
garian press hailed with joy the retreat of the Serbian Army 
to Rudnik. They were already preparing at Sofia to divide 
the booty. On the reports of Tchaprachikoff, Bulgarian 
Minister at Nish, who described the despair of the Serbs, 
Bulgaria made ready " to protect her interests in Macedonia." 
The catastrophe which seemed imminent for the Serbs was 
a cause of rejoicing, so that when the first news favourable 
to Serbia arrived, in December, 1914, the disappointment 
was great at Sofia. And the tidings of the rout of the 
Austro-Hungarian armies provoked far greater consterna- 
tion there than at Vienna and Budapest. 

It is known only too well with what easy indifference 
Bulgarian covetousness was displayed in autumn, 1915. 
The blow perfidiously dealt in the back whilst the armies 
of the two great European Empires attacked Serbia in 
front, was celebrated by the Bulgarian press as the most 
glorious event in history. As for Serbia, the plan for decid- 
ing her fate was quite ready at Sofia. She must be strangled 
once for all. 

The Voenni Izvestia of December 26th assured its 
readers that : 

" The war will not cease until the day when we (the Bulgars) 
have convinced the friends of Serbia that their cause is irre- 
trievably lost, and that Serbia, guilty of having provoked the 
war, is indeed dead." 

The Berliner Tageblatt (December 28th, 1915) described 
in a long despatch from its Sofia correspondent the opening 
of the Sobranie : 

" On his way to Sofia King Ferdinand was greeted with 
endless acclamations. . . . The King himself read the speech 
from the throne, in clear and confident tones. He raised his 
voice in speaking of Serbian tyranny and treachery. Even 
without understanding Bulgarian, one could perceive, from 
the severe and vibrating notes, that the King represented the 
Serbs as the dead of this war. ... The words in which the 
King denounced the crime of Serbia reflect the general feeling." 

The next day the same journal was informed that M. 
Radoslavoff had declared, before the majority of the deputies, 
that the Bulgarian frontiers would extend as far as the 
Bulgarian soldiers had penetrated. 



TO ANNIHILATE SERBIA 33 

The Vice-President of, the Sobranie, Momtchiloff, said 
to one of the staff of the Az Est of Budapest (the interview- 
was reproduced in the Vossische Zeitung of January 7th, 
1916), " Caeterum censeo Serbiam esse delendam," adding 
" Bulgaria, according to certain treaties, has the right to keep 
all Serbian territory occupied." 

The Narodni Prava of January 25th, 19 16, wrote : 

"... With the aid of the Central Powers. Bulgaria has 
obtained great successes : the liberation of Macedonia, the 
annihilation of Serbia, the focus of the troubles, and the con- 
solidation of an order acceptable in the Balkans." 

In its issue of January 16th, 1916, the same journal 
derided the English and French who " dreamed of restoring 
the kingdom of a lunatic (King Peter) and a criminal 
(Pachitch)." 

At the news of the capitulation of Montenegro, the 
Minister of Finance, Tontcheff, declared to the Balkanska 
Pochta of Sofia : 

"The capitulation of Montenegro is especially important 
from the Balkan point of view, because it makes any new state- 
ment of the Serbo-Montenegrin problem impossible." (Dispatch 
of the Berliner Tageblatt from Sofia, January 20th, 1916.) 

The semi-official Echo de Bulgarie enounces the same 
idea, as well as the opposition journal, Preporetz. The 
Berliner Tageblatt is informed from Sofia that, according to 
generally received opinion, Montenegro will obtain for the 
cession of Lovtchen rich compensation taken from former 
Serbian territory, and that the Montenegrin dynasty will 
preserve its throne with considerably augmented territory. 

Lastly, let us mention a statement said to have been 
made by the President of the Council to the correspondent 
of a Berlin journal. Radoslavoff is reported to have 
declared that a treaty between Bulgaria and the Central 
Powers on the subject of a partition of Serbia had existed 
for some time. According to this treaty, Austria would 
retain Northern Serbia, with Belgrade and both banks of 
the Morava. Bulgaria would annex the eastern part of 
Serbia, with Nish and a large portion of Macedonia. The 
rest would be given to Montenegro (Journal de Geneve, 
November 20th, 1915). These plans coincided , with ugly 
rumours, insufficiently explained even to-day, of a separate 
peace with Montenegro. The question was stated still 
more brutally afterwards. Radoslavoff repeated the same 



34 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

opinions to a correspondent of the Berliner Tageblatt 
(January 30th, 1916) : 

" The handing over of certain parts of Serbia to Monte- 
negro would simplify the Balkan situation from several points 
of view. The role of Serbia, for that matter, is finished for ever. 
Austria-Hungary will keep definitely those provinces necessary 
to guarantee her against future perils. As for the intellectual 
class, that turbulent and dangerous element, it exists no longer. 
The men who have remained in Serbia feel themselves to be 
Bulgars, or at least will take into consideration the chance of 
beginning to live in a tranquil country." 

The Outro of April 22nd published a German intrigue, 
imputing to Caillaux's secretary declarations against 
Russian aspirations towards the Straits and against the 
restoration of Serbia. It was given out that he maintained 
the necessity of creating a strong Bulgaria to take the 
place of Serbia. This Germano-Bulgarian calumny is only 
important through its coincidence with a series of other 
similar rumours. 

During its triumphant tour through the allied capitals, 
the delegation of Bulgarian deputies always spoke of 
Serbia as a dead State. The importance of the fact that 
Bulgaria and Austro-Hungary would henceforth be imme- 
diate neighbours was emphasised on both sides. In a toast 
at Budapest M. Momtchiloff said : 

" We have solved another important question, and realised 
a great ideal of our past ; we have become neighbours of Hungary 
— the last Bulgar would die rather than renounce the contact with 
Hungary." 

To the Az Est (May 2nd, 1916) Momtchiloff said : 

" The Entente makes a great mistake if it thinks of restoring 
Serbia." 

The Hungarian journals made use of similar expressions. 
The Pesti Naplo wrote on April 30th, 1916 : 

" The most important result of the world war for us lies, 
perhaps, in the fact that our States are in contact with each 
other. Henceforward we must not tolerate being separated by 
a hostile country ; Serbian territory should be divided among our 
peasantry." 

According to the Alkotmany of May 2nd, Hungary 
and Bulgaria ought to rule the Balkans. Many Bulgarian 
statesmen asserted that the chief motive for the adhesion 
of Bulgaria to Central Europe was the necessity of contact 
with Hungary. 



TO ANNIHILATE SERBIA 35 

The Pester Lloyd (April 30th, 1916) also asserted the 
necessity of a common Bulgaro-Hungarian frontier. And 
an official personage, the Hungarian Minister a latere 
Erwin Rossner, declared that one of the acquisitions of this 
war would be that Bulgarian and Hungarian territories 
touched each other. (Neue Freie Presse, May 3rd, 1916.) 

When the Bulgarian deputies arrived in Germany, the 
German press reiterated the same notions respecting the 
definite character and the consequences of the disappearance 
of Serbia. The Vossische Zeitung (May 7th, 1916) wrote 
that the Bulgars would keep, not only Macedonia, but also 
a good part of the former territory of the kingdom of Serbia. 
The Frankfurter Zeitung of May 8th, 1916, asserts that 
Serbia is crushed. On the return of the Bulgarian deputies 
from Hamburg, the Frankfurter Zeitung of May 18th puts 
forth the same idea. The Kolnische Zeitung (May 18th) 
acclaims the alliance of the States between Berlin and Bagdad, 
a block which would seal the fate of the two chief arteries 
of the British Empire, India and Egypt. The Milnchner 
Neueste Nachrichten compliments Bulgaria as ruler on this 
new world route. At the reception of the Bulgarians by the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Munich, the Councillor of 
State, Lossel, and at the official reception at the Hotel de 
Ville, the President, Borscht, felicitated Bulgaria on having 
crushed an hereditary enemy, Serbia. (Milnchner Neueste 
Nachrichten, May 23rd.) This barbarous note is heard 
even in the organ of the most advanced Hungarian demo- 
crats, Vilag, which, in its issue of May 25th, criticising an 
article of Pierre de Lanux, wrote : 

" The title of Lanux's article is Resurrection ; why the 
author believes in a resurrection the article does not tell us. 
It is only over the gates of cemeteries that it is the custom to inscribe 
the words, ' We shall rise again.' " 

The finishing touch is given by the organ of Tisza, Az 
Ujsag, of May 27th, 1916 : 

" The Hamburg-Bagdad railway will join together the Turanian 
peoples in geographical unity."* 

The journey of the Prince Regent of Serbia to Paris 
and London suggested to the Mir of April 12th, 1916, a 
flood of stupid insults. 

" Prince Alexander and Pachitch will have enough good 

* Three days later the same journal protested against the declaration 
of President Wilson claiming the sovereignty and integrity of the Smaller 
States. The Oestereichische Rundschau of July ist, 191 6, also attacks 
Wilson in an article dealing with Serbia. 



36 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

sense to understand that it would have been easier to cure a 
sick man than to bring to life, now, a dead one." 

A Bulgarian personage, " of high intelligence and perfect 
urbanity," of the stock so called " ententist," from Sofia, 
expressed to Professor Rossier of Lausanne, the same noble 
opinion {Gazette de Lausanne, May 7th, 1916) : 

" Politics are made up of realities. The power of Serbia is 
broken. The nation does not even exist ; half of it perished 
from hunger when it regained its hearths and devastated fields, 
after having followed the retreat of the soldiers too far. That 
being so, why persist in trying to bring to life a corpse ? " 

The Echo de Bulgarie of May 16th says, " the Serbian 
Army, in quitting the country, left its soul there," and it is 
this " soul-less multitude . . . this broken instrument," 
which is to " renew the greatness of Serbia." The article 
preaches the extinction of Serbia, but under the form of 
a retort to the Serbian President of the Council, Pachitch, 
who, during his tour in Russia, is asserted to have preached 
the extinction of Bulgaria. The Echo de Bulgarie says, " the 
Serbo-Bulgarian dispute is settled once for all." 

* * 
* 

It was, above all, in May and June, 19 16, that the desire 
for the definite overthrow of Serbia manifested itself in 
the Bulgarian press. Verdun would bring about peace. 
Radoslavoff declared that everything depended on Verdun. 
The taking of Verdun, which would convince neutral States 
of the inevitable defeat of the Entente, would be of decisive 
importance.* And in the expectation of the fall of Verdun, 
and peace, the Bulgars hastened to define their claims. 
The Narodni Prava wrote on May 19th, 1916 : 
" Bulgarian diplomats may soon have to express their 
opinions before the great peace conference which will settle 
the war. They will have to state the theoretical reasons which 
are the basis of Bulgarian claims alread}^ sufficiently fortified 
by force of arms. They will discuss and draw up the formulas 
dealing with the future of Serbia and our relations with neigh- 
bouring States. On these questions, above all on that of the 
fate of Serbia, our real enemy, our diplomats must be wary, 

BUT ABOVE ALL SEVERE AND INEXORABLE. THEY MUST PUT 
ASIDE ALL SENTIMENT, ALL HUMANE CONSIDERATIONS, ALL TENDER- 
HEARTEDNESS. The existence of a Serbian State, under any 
form, means the continuance of trouble in the Balkans. . . . 

* Declaration of a Bulgarian statesman to the Lohal Anzeiger of 
Berlin. (Neue Freie Presse, July nth, 1916.) 



TO ANNIHILATE SERBIA 37 

This State, which, from the beginning of its independent existence, 
has not ceased to be a focus of disorders and dissensions, ought 
to be expunged from the surface of the earth, if it is intended to 
lay the foundation needed for the calm and; civilising work of 
the European and Balkan peoples. ... It is a prime necessity 
for the future of humanity, and, above all, for us and our neigh- 
bours. The words of the wise German statesman, Bismarck, 
pronounced on the night of September ist-2nd, 1870, apropos 
of the capitulation of Sedan and the French Army are 
appropriate to this question. 

" Only the obduracy of the iron Chancellor in face of the 
solicitations of the French secured to Germany a forty-three 
years' peace. The relations of Germany to her neighbour i&ere 
almost the same as are those of Bulgaria and Serbia. That is 
why it is incumbent on our diplomacy to apply the maxim of 
Bismarck : No generosity in the concluding of peace." 

The same state of mind animates the editors of the 
Dnevnik of June 5 th, 1916 : 

" Political organisations whose existence up to the present 
has only been manifested by provocations, and which conse- 
quently are in need of the influence of a higher culture, should 
be suppressed." 

The Echo de Bulgarie of June 7th describes the misery 
of self-slain Serbia and of the Serbian refugees to whom 
" there remains only submission under the tutelage of 
Bulgarian laws." The Narodni Prava of June 9th, 1916, 
protests against those who " without regard to the actual 
conditions wish to bring back the state of things that 
provoked the war by their retrograde action." The Dnevnik 
of June 19th publishes an article by the Berlin professor, 
Otto Hoetsch, in which he asserts that Serbia and Monte- 
negro possess only an historic interest to-day. The Narodni 
Prava (June 21st, 1916) opines that " the restoration of 
Serbia according to the plan of Sazonov would be fatal to 
the Balkans." 

, The deputy Kaltchoff writes in the Narodni Prava (June 
27th, 1916) that Serbia has lost, morally, the right to exist. 

" Besides, it is evident that Germany and Austro-Hungary 
equally with Bulgaria have interests demanding the extinction 
of Serbia, and the liberation of the Bulgars of Macedonia and 
the Morava. The interests and aspirations, political and 
economic, of Germans and Bulgars are in accord, and that is 
the common basis necessary to a permanent alliance." 

The leader of the Liberal Party of Bavaria, Dr. Miiller- 
Meininger, communicates to the correspondent of the Neue 



38 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Ziircher Zeitung (July 21st, 1916) this general impression 
of the journey of the German deputies to Sofia : 

"It is the opinion throughout Bulgaria that Serbia 
ought to be radically extirpated, and that if even a micro- 
scopic Serbia is allowed to subsist, there will be no peace in 

the Balkans." % ^ 

'* 

The conviction that Serbia will never exist again has 
become an axiom with the Bulgars and their allies. On this 
assumption not only do they dream of the Hamburg- 
Bagdad railway and Mittel-Europa, but already begin to 
elaborate plans of practical enterprises depending on the 
realisation of their dreams. 

In a long article on the railways to be made in the 
Balkans, the Pester Lloyd (May 26th, 1916) points out 
especially the Belgrade-Salonica line as the most natural 
boundary between the Bulgarian and Austro-Hungarian 
spheres of interest. 

The representatives of the Bulgarian Society of Agri- 
culture, George Davailoff, University professor and deputy, 
and Alexander Tzankoff, professor at the University, 
gave a lecture on July 16th, 1916, in Buda-Pesth, at the 
" Central Agricultural Office for the East." Davailoff 
unfolded projects of new ways of communication in the 
conquered territories. Tzankoff spoke of agriculture, and 
estimated that Bulgarian territory (actually 96,346 square 
kilometres) would certainly be augmented by at least 
67,000 square kilometres (Pester Lloyd, June 17th, 1916). 

At the economic conference of the Central Empires, 
held at Munich, the Viennese professor Oelwein spoke of a 
fluvial route from Smederevo by the Morava and Vardar 
to Salonica and the iEgean Sea (Arbeiter Zeitung, June 
20th, 1916). At the Danubian conference, held at Buda- 
Pesth on September 4th, 1916, a project tending to facilitate 
the navigation of the Iron Gates was discussed. The 
engineer Rossmayer suggested a canal between Brza 
Palanka and the point round Yutch, opposite Dogni Milano- 
vatz. Thanks to this, the passage of the Danube would 
be shortened by 94 kilometres. . . . These studies have for 
their main object the preparation of questions of utility 
to be discussed at the peace conference (Preporetz, October 
7th, 1916). 

An article in the Pesti Hirlap (May 9th, 1916) must be 
classed in the same order of ideas. The Hungarian journal 



TO ANNIHILATE SERBIA 39 

insists on " the appropriation of land in occupied Serbia, 
which exists no longer." In its issue of April 30th the Pesti 
Hirlap had treated of the partition of enemy lands between 
Bulgarian and Hungarian cultivators. This time it enters 
into practical details : 

" We ought to keep for ourselves as much as possible of the 
Serbian country now under our administration. Much vacant 
property is in our hands, and even that whose proprietors 
exist could be acquired at a low price. . . . A s we have no 
colonies, nothing is more natural than that we should overflow 
into the conquered regions. We must take care that the soil 
conquered at the price of Hungarian blood becomes Hungarian." 

Even in their diplomatic and legislative acts, the Bulgars 
treat Serbia as a country annexed, not merely occupied. 
In doing this they infringe an elementary rule of public law, 
which lays it down that the occupation of enemy territory 
confers no definite rights until the conclusion of peace. It 
constitutes a want of scruples without an example in history. 
This insolent contempt of fundamental usage admitted 
up to now by civilised nations, has been displayed on divers 
occasions, but above all when a demand was made by the 
Serbian Red Cross. The Bulgarian Red Cross refused to 
furnish the information required, alleging that " in conse- 
quence of the occupation of all Serbian territory by the 
Bulgarian and allied armies, no Serbian authority, and 
therefore no Serbian Red Cross, existed in that country ..." 
and the Balkanska Pochta-oi September 20th, 1916, wrote : 

" It has been officially intimated that Bulgaria cannot 
recognise the Serbian Red Cross Society, seeing that the Serbian 
State exists no longer, and that Serbs are henceforth our subjects." 

' This brutal act bore the signature of Gueshoff, as Presi- 
dent of the Bulgarian Red Cross. 

On the assumption of this same inept notion that the 
Serbs had become Bulgarian subjects by the sole fact of 
the occupation, Bulgaria instituted military commissions 
charged with recruiting soldiers among her new subjects. 

We shall speak further elsewhere of these monstrous 
proceedings, contrary to all law. 



The renewed activity in the Balkans, the offensive of 
Sarrail, and Roumanian intervention provoked the same 
manifestations respecting the fate of Serbia. Touching the 



40 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

combats with the Serbs on the Macedonian front, the 
Kambana (August 24th, 1916) wrote : 

" These are, in truth, the last attempts of criminal Serbism 
to maintain itself erect ; they are the last death spasms of the 
unhappy wretches whom the criminal dynasty of Karageorge- 
vitch and the Entente Powers have tried to organise into an 
army to oppose us. The battles on our right wing will be 
instructive to the peaceful Serbs who live in what was formerly 
Serbia. These peaceable Serbs see to-day more clearly than 
last winter, so unfortunate for them, that no force can save 
criminal Serbism. ' ' 

The Roumanian intervention, above all, excited the 
bellicose fury of the Bulgars ; the Narodni Prava of Septem- 
ber 1st, 1916, wrote : 

" Serbia has paid very dearly for its treachery and treason 
to Bulgaria. The guilty now wander and beg in foreign lands. . . . 
There is no place in the Balkans for brigands and perjurers." 

Kambana, September 2nd : 

" Countries like Serbia and Roumania are destined to annihi- 
lation." 

The Frankfurter Zeitung of September 12th, commenting 
on the interviews of Ferdinand of Coburg with Enver Pasha 
and the Kaiser, lays stress on : 

" the probability that Bulgaria would be in agreement with 
Germany and Austro-Hungary on the question of the partition 
of Serbia." 

Kambana (October 9th, 1916) : 

" Serbia exists no more to-day, and the kingdom of 
Serbia will never be restored." 

Even when the probability of a definite military triumph 
had considerably diminished, when in Germany an anti- 
annexationist reaction had arisen, the Bulgarian press, as 
well as that of Austro-Hungary, continued to reiterate on 
every occasion the same idea, to wit, that Serbia should no 
longer exist or that it should be reduced to an existence 
deprived of the most elementary conditions of vitality. 

Whence comes this Bulgarian implacability, this desire 
to destroy Serbia, which, however, Ferdinand of Coburg 
believed still in 19 12, could be accorded a place in the 
Balkans by the side of Great Bulgaria ? 



CHAPTER IV. 

THE BULGARS AGAINST THE UNION OF THE YUGO-SLAVS 

The intolerance of the Bulgars towards Serbia, whatever 
its form and proportions, is owing to several causes. 

Firstly, Bulgarian appetites have increased with success. 
Then, Bulgarian covetousness may be explained by the 
annexationist fever and the dream of Mittel-Europa which 
kept the Central Empires, Bulgaria, and Turkey in a state 
of intoxication until the autumn of 1916. But these 
reasons which arose in the course of the war are only 
additions to the main reason, which also led Bulgaria into 
the war. 

Bulgaria still considered in 1912 that there was room for 
Serbia beside her. If she had kept this opinion, she ought 
to have accepted the compensations in Macedonia offered 
in 1915. This offer secured her the same advantages she 
esteemed sufficient, two years earlier, to guarantee her 
existence and her development by the side of Serbia. 
When King Ferdinand and the Russophobe Rizoff concluded 
the Serbo-Bulgarian alliance in 1912 they were very clear- 
sighted as to the security it afforded to Bulgaria. The}^ 
could consent with a light heart to a certain expansion of 
Serbia, because even enlarged, this State had less territory 
than Bulgaria, and must continue to depend for its external 
communications on Austria and Bulgaria, long bound to 
each other by a close understanding. The Neue Freie 
Presse of May 4th, 1916, in its answer to Count Andrass}^, 
develops the idea that a Serbian kingdom ought no longer 
to be permitted. Experience had shown that " the hindrances 
of customs tariffs, the throttling of its commerce, and the 
denial of access to the open sea, no longer sufficed to paralyse 
this little State ".; on the contrary, these measures only 
increased its hatred and provoked assaults and assassina- 
tions of sovereigns ; "in other words, it was no longer 
enough to grip Serbia by the throat through chicanery ; 

41 



42 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

it was necessary to strangle her altogether," This was a 
precious avowal of the Neue Freie Presse concerning the 
means resorted to by Austrian policy, every time Serbia 
refused to serve the interests of the dual monarchy. It 
was a proof also of the guarantees held by Bulgaria and 
Austria-Hungaiy in the complete envelopment of Serbia. 

According to the estimate of Sofia, ten years of peace 
would have sufficed -for Bulgaria to assimilate Macedonia 
from the ethnographic point of view, and ensure a durable 
prestige in the Balkans. In the event of a European war, 
Serbia could not have undertaken the liberation of her 
brothers in the west and north, except she secured herself 
in the east and south by new compensations to Bulgaria. 
Through these new acquisitions, Bulgaria would be finally 
established in the centre of the Balkans, would have con- 
quered her principal artery, and driven Serbia towards the 
west, whither Bulgarian ethnographers pushed her always. 

By the side of a Bulgaria thus enlarged, consolidated, 
and containing seven million inhabitants (almost double 
her ethnical share), Serbia would have been able to exist 
with an equal population, but very much absorbed by 
internal organisation. That would have been the only 
means of establishing between very unequal forces, like 
the Serbian and Bulgarian, a balance in favour of Bulgaria. 

The insatiable cupidity of Bulgaria in 1913 unmasked 
all the duplicity of her policy of understanding with Serbia. 
The fratricidal war ruined not only an idea so sound as 
that of the Serbo-Bulgarian entente, but also upset the 
selfish calculations the Bulgars based upon it. Coveting a 
larger slice than they were entitled to, the Bulgars lost in 
1913 even what the Serbs did not refuse them. The con- 
cessions offered in 1915 compensated the Bulgars for their 
losses in 1913, but no longer responded to the hopes founded 
on the eventuality of a new extension of Serbia towards 
the west. The Bulgarian outlook had changed. Besides 
which, events had shown that Serbia, whether she counted 
4! or 12 million souls, was becoming a factor in the Balkans 
that had to be reckoned with. For all these reasons Bul- 
garia, from the first day of the European war, decided to 
solve her problem radically.* To diminish Serbia no 

* This notion of a radical solution of the Serbian question was 
developed in the same manner in Austria-Hungary. 

In the Neue Freie Presse of April 23rd, 1916 (Easter number) Count 
Andrassy demonstrated the inconvenience of an annexation of Serbia. 
In its issue of May 4th the Neue Freie Presse " from a special source 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE YUGO-SLAVS 43 

longer seemed sufficient ; she must be destroyed, once for 
all ; it had become necessary to nip in the bud that organism 
which, until then, had displayed so much vitality that even 
the smallest part of it, left free, ought to be considered 
dangerous. All the conditions of freedom must be sup- 
pressed in Serbia, which otherwise remained, even in its 
smallest proportions, the natural and irresistible fulcrum 
of its great nation. 

Even nations less numerous than the Yugo-slav cannot 
be annihilated, above all by nations still smaller. Bulgaria 
knew this well enough. She could not have regarded this 
absurd pretension seriously, had she not been encouraged 
in her criminal plan by Austria-Hungary, who had a more 
vital interest in the disappearance of Serbia. For Bulgaria 
it- was only a question of Balkan hegemony, which she 
could not have realised in the event of the formation of a 
united Serbia. For Austria, the destruction of Serbia 
meant the suppression of the basis necessary to the creation 
of a Yugo-slav State in the centre and west of the Balkan 
peninsula. And this State would not only have caused the 
amputation of a large stretch of Austrian territory and 
obstructed its expansion in the Balkans, but it would have 
represented the triumph of national liberty and independence, 
a triumph fatal to the future of the Habsburg monarchy. 



The annexationist fury of Austria-Hungary and Bulgaria 

of information " (von besonderer Seite) referred to Andrassy's article, 
contending that the dangers foreseen by Count Andrassy represented " a 
lesser evil than the continued existence of this little State." 

Count Lutzow, a former diplomatist, wrote in the Neue Freie Pressc 
of July 26th, 1916, on the occasion of the anniversary of the Austrian 
ultimatum : 

" The fact that Serbia yielded may be considered a diplomatic. success, 
but what good purpose would it have served ? During the Balkan crisis 
we scored diplomatic successes, for example, the hindering of Serbia from 
access to the sea in dealing with the question of Scutari. We should be 
very simple to believe that Serbia would ever abide by conditions she 
had accepted while grinding her teeth. . . . This victory would have 
been probably a Pyrrhic one, that would have placed us sooner or later 
under the necessity of having recourse to the ultima ratio, to extreme measures 
under conditions more favourable to the adversary, who would certainly 
have profited by the time gained." 

Speaking (after the Russko'ie Slovo) of the new Serbian centre at 
Odessa, the Pester Lloyd of August nth, 191 6, says : 

" Great Serbia is a hundred-headed hydra. We have cut off her 
head at Belgrade and at Nish, and behold she shoots forth poison and 
gall in a foreign town, Odessa. . . . The Serbian centre newly created 
at Odessa is a symbol. He who understands this symbol will know also 
why Austria-Hungary ought to have made of Serbia — tabula rasa." 



44 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

was stimulated, moreover, by a special circumstance. 
Europe, which, in the conflict of Serbs and Bulgars, con- 
templates, amid the carnage of the nations, this most 
desperate life and death struggle, does not suspect that the 
two peoples who exterminate each other so pitilessly in 
the Balkans are formed of men of the same blood and the 
same tongue. In the great Yugo-slav family, Serbs and 
Bulgars are in reality tribes of the same race, speaking- 
dialects of the same language. From the Julian Alps and 
Carinthia to the Black Sea extend the undulations of the 
same great national wave. In the central zone, Serbs and 
Croats use the same dialect* ; on the two wings, the Slovenes 
at the extreme west, and the Bulgars at the extreme east, 
speak dialects which in the boundary zones melt into the 
central Serbo-Croat tongue. The similarity of these dialects 
is such, and the gradations of the transition so imperceptible, 
that the traveller who knows no matter which of the three 
can journey perfectly well fromLubliana (Laibach) to Varna 
without perceiving that he is in a foreign country. Serbo- 
Croat, Slovene, and Bulgar are so much alike that newspapers 
in any three indifferently can be read without preparatory 
study. Everywhere else, where civilisation is more deeply 
rooted, this similarity of speech, with other ethnic charac- 
teristics, would have been a solid basis for complete union ; 
only in the Balkans has it been powerless to prevent separa- 
tism. Actually, this mediaeval tendency is maintained 
nowhere except in the Balkan east. Whilst the Yugo-slav 
tribe, the Slovenes, living furthest west, is the most far- 
seeing and full of enthusiasm for Yugo-slav union, the tribe 
planted at the eastern extremity, the Bulgars, fights tooth 
and nail to make this union impossible. Bulgarian patriot- 
ism has seen in the similitude of language, above all in the 
zones of transition, only a circumstance favourable to the 
extension of the limits of the Bulgarian tribe. Not sociable, 
distrustful, not yet mature enough to conceive a larger 
unity, the Bulgars have aimed in all their enterprises at 
one object, predominance, not only in material strength 
and territorial magnitude, but ethnically. Not only did 
the conquest of Serbia make the deliverance and union of 
the Yugo-slavs impossible for a time, but it subjected a 
large zone to the action of Bulgarian nationalist propaganda. 
This regarded henceforth as its held not only the Vardar 

* The Dictionary published by the Yugo-slav Academy of Zagreb 
bears the title, " Dictionary of the Croat or Serbian Language." 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE YUGO-SLAVS 45 

basin, but also the whole region of the Morava, and even the 
plateau of Kossovo. By progressively assimilating the 
Serbian tribe, the Chauvinist Bulgars hoped to modify the 
existing ethnic proportions and thus increase their national 
contingent. A member of the Gueshoff party, the deputy 
Boris Vazoff, recommends in an article in the Mir (January 
16th, 1916) the diffusion of the Bulgarian language : 

" We must not forget that the struggle between Bulgars and 
Serbs and other Balkan peoples is also a struggle for the 

PREDOMINANCE OF ONE OF TWO LANGUAGES. Our activity 

does not end with military victories ; victory will only be com- 
plete when the Bulgarian speech predominates in the Balkan 
peninsula. Bulgars do not pay sufficient attention to this. . . . 
In the recently conquered provinces, soldiers, officers, and 
functionaries endeavour to speak Serbian with the inhabitants 
although the people understand Bulgarian quite well. ..." 

Vazoff also accuses the Serbs of wishing to abase the 
Bulgarian tongue in the eyes of strangers by treating it as 
a corrupt dialect of Serbian : 

" The distinguished Slavist Yaghiich, himself, was of opinion 
that the Bulgarian language had no future, that Bidgars ought 
to accept Serbian as a literary language. Serbian perseverance 
came very near to winning in an unjust cause. ... In fact, 
the cause of the Bulgarian language and Bulgarism is neglected ; 
we are still half illiterate. ... I am ashamed, I avow, but it is 
the truth nevertheless ; we do not yet possess a clear exposition 
of the forms of the Bulgarian tongue, we have not a dictionary 
in which all the treasures of the language are collected and 
published." 

This learned survey of the diffusion of the Bulgarian 
language at the expense of Serbian, published in the organ 
of the signatories of the Serbo-Bulgarian Alliance, was 
followed by other manifestations in the same sense but much 
coarser. 

Already, before the appearance of VazorFs article, 
Radoslavoff had declared to a writer in the Az Est : 

" The majority of the population calls itself Bulgarian, 
and only in the younger generation are people to be found 
having a national Serbian conscience. The new regime will 
know how to put that in order also. ..." (Nene Zurcher Zeitung, 
January 31st, 1916.) 

A discussion arose in the Bulgarian Sobranie on the 
occasion of the vote on the law for the opening of Bulgarian 
schools in the occupied territory. The Socialist deputies 
reproached the Government with terrorising the population 



46 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

and preparing a regime of denationalisation. The Narodni 
Prava (February 4th, 1916) deemed it necessary to devote 
an article to this debate : 

" There were even deputies who spoke of denationalisation, 
of a regime of terror which we were about to inaugiirate, because 
we were dominated bv the Chauvinist passion which had taken 
hold of Bulgaria. . . . They said this in full Parliament, and 
at the moment of passing the Bill introduced by M. Pecheff 
on the schools of the liberated provinces. . . . They are think- 
ing, perhaps, of the Serbs, of whom traces exist in the Morava. 
We can affirm that the Serbs — if they can be said to come 
into question, when we have to do with Pirot, Vrania, or Za'itchar 
— will not need to be denationalised, because, without that, con- 
tinuing to live amid a compact mass of Bulgars, they will soon 
forget their Serbism." 

Dr. Ivan Dimitroff , in the Dnevnik (February 14th, 1916) 
deals with " the administration of the occupied territories." 

"... What Serbia could not do in forty years Bulgaria 
will finish in three or four. She will attain it by a legal regime, 
by national Bulgarian education on a large basis, with teachers 
and priests who should be good patriots and indefatigable 
workers, with bishops and prefects, by a large and sane culture, 
national and European, b}? an administration, enlightened and 
law-abiding." 

The Narodni Prava, in a leader of March 7th, 1916, 
entitled " Public. Instruction in the New Provinces," says 
that it is the duty of the Government, although the war is 
not yet over, to lay the foundations of Great Bulgaria, 
that is to say, to establish Bulgarian schools in the new 
provinces. 

"It is for this that the Minister Pecheff has not hesitated 
to draft a law on the organisation of Bulgarian schools in the 
Morava and Macedonia. It remains now with the Bulgarian 
teachers in the new provinces to prepare a solid basis for Bulgarian 
culture. So we may hope for the day when the figure of Bulgaria 
will tower aloft from the Black Sea to the mountains of Albania, 
and from the Danube to Prespa and the Mgean." 

If we recall the aim of Bulgarian policy, which is to 

ensure the doubling of territory by the doubling of the race, 

we can understand the feverish haste with which the Bulgars 

from the first days of their invasion have driven by main 

force into the Bulgarian schools the Serbian population, 

sick, famished, and in rags. 

* * 

Whilst arming in order to conquer and divide Serbia 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE YUGO-SLAVS 47 

with Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria also organised the propa- 
ganda of her aspirations to Serbian territory. Begun 
since the summer of 1915 by the Government organs, this 
Serbophobe and megalomaniac campaign has become 
general, and to-day the Government holds everything at 
its disposal to continue it — the support of all political 
parties, Bulgarian literature and science. With the increase 
,of chances of victory, came augmentation of the numbers 
of those who preached the crusade against Serbia. Towards 
the end of 1915, soon after the entrance of Bulgaria into the 
war, the opposition promised to support the Government, 
on condition that the latter should put an end to the war 
and conclude peace with Serbia as soon as Macedonia was 
conquered.* But when the conquest of Serbia was accom- 
plished, the opposition did not hesitate long before joining 
those who wish to maintain Bulgarian pretensions to eastern 
Serbia in conformity with the Germano-Bulgarian scheme 
of partition. A. Ichirkoff, professor and member of the 
Bulgarian Academy of Science, published in the spring of 
1916 a voluminous work, in which he essays to demonstrate 
the Bulgarian character of all the Valley of the Morava— 
the vital artery of Serbian lands. The savants of the Univer- 
sity and of the Academy of Sofia discover Bulgars even in 
the villages of the district of Belgrade, even in the suburbs 
of the Serbian capital, and according to them, Bulgarian 
characteristics become more prominent in following the 
course of the Morava southwards. In certain places they 
are attributed to villages on the left bank of the Morava, 
and doubt is cast on the Serbian character of the classic 
home of the Serbian race — the Shoumadia. Even Kra- 
guevatz, the ancient capital of the Serbian Prince Lazar, is 
represented as Bulgarian. It is needless to add that 
Bulgarian science does not hesitate to consider Old Serbia 
and Macedonia as incontestably Bulgarian. 

This order of ideas has been developed by the Bulgarian 
press with an easy carelessness truly cynical. 

In an article in the Narodni Prava (March 29th, 1916) 
Nikola Mitakoff represented the partition of Serbia and the 
Bulgarisation of all its eastern half as a piece of good fortune 
for the Serbian nation. 

* La Suisse (November 20th, 1915) reproduces a dispatch from 
Bucharest to the Secolo of Milan, according to which the Bulgarian opposi- 
tion consented to a union of parties, or common policy, on condition that 
Bulgaria would stop the war and make peace with Serbia as soon as 
Macedonia was entirely occupied. 



48 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

" Serbia presents a melancholy picture to-day. Its distress 
is the result of a series of exploits of brigands and demented 
diplomatists. But the Serbian nation is saved. It is saved to 
begin a new and happy life." 

And the Bulgarian writer sets himself to describe this 
new life of the Serbian people : 

"... We cannot dream of reconstructing a Serbian or a 
Montenegrin State. They are neither necessary nor possible. 
So long as the world lasts, a Peter, a Nikita, a Pachitch will 
be impossible. The Serbs to the west of Mitrovitza and the 
valley of the Morava must join their brothers, the Croats, 
Herzegovinians, and Bosnians, instead of falling under the 
talons of their tyrants and suffering indefinitely. The union 
of these Serbs with those of Austria-Hungary will be a real 
good fortune for the Serbian nation. This nation will be thus 
united in the complete sense of the word, and should be far 
prouder of belonging to Austria-Hungary than remaining an 
independent unit in the hands of usurping Serbian kings. As 
for the Serbianised Bulgars of the Timok and the Morava, to 
whom Bulgaria opens her arms wide, they will not be long in 
feeling the beneficent rays of the sun which warms them. They 
will come back from their straying, and will feel the divine 
grace flowing as upon erring children who return to the paternal 
roof. . . ." * 



The Bulgarian intrigues and the guarantees demanded 
by the Radoslavoff Government in 1915 from the Quadruple 
Entente against the expansion of Serbia towards the west, 
go to prove that the Bulgars made war to hinder the Serbo- 
Croat-Slovene union. The Narodni Prava, Radoslavoff's 
organ, in an article headed " On Serbian Territory," in the 
issue of October 17th, 1915 — that is to say during the first 
days of the Bulgarian invasion of Serbia — says : 

" At Serajevo the Serbian people dared to assassinate the 
Austro-Hungarian Crown Prince and his spouse, in the hope 
of realising a Chauvinist Utopia. The madmen who governed 
Serbia demanded that 15 million ' Serbian ' Slavs should be 
incorporated in Serbia, and did not admit the idea that Serbia, 
on the contrary, should be annexed to those other ' Serbs.' ' 

According to the Narodni Prava, the Serbs of the free 
kingdom of Serbia ought, therefore, to join the subjugated 
Yugo-slavs and shut themselves up with them in the Austro- 

* The same morality and the same reasoning are to be found in the 
Beogradske N ovine (May 29th, 1916), which says that it is now that the 
Serbian people will become really free. 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE YUGOSLAVS 49 

Hungarian cage. To bring this about and to prevent 
the free union of Slovenes, Croats, and Serbs, who, however, 
are Slavs like themselves, the Bulgars have embarked on 
a holy war in concert with Germans, Hungarians, and Turks. 

From the month of November, 1915, or, more precisely, 
from the first Bulgarian successes against the Serbs, the Mir 
of Gueshoff prepared for its conversion. The former 
propagator of Yugo-slav fraternity, the Mir, Russophil 
and Slavophil, dared to maintain in its leader of November 
20th that the present war is not a war of Germans against 
Slavs. To prove this, it pretended that the Slavs of Austria- 
Hungary fought " with enthusiasm " against the Russians 
as well as against the Italians. 

In Austria-Hungary as well as in Bulgaria the Yugo- 
slav question began to be regarded as common to both. It 
became the basis of solidarity, uniting them against Serbia. 

The semi-official Bosnische Post of Serajevo, in its leader 
of December 10th, 1915, sought a solution of the Serbian 
question : 

" Austria-Hungary had no intention, at first, of annexing 
Serbia ; she desired only to paralyse the action of Serbia in the 
Yugo-slav question, which became thenceforth an Austro-Bulgarian 
question. However, seeing that Bulgaria wants to retain, 
besides Macedonia, the departments of Negotin and Pirot, 
that Albania is to take the province of Kossovo, and that Austria- 
Hungary, as Tisza declared before, must annex at least a band 
of territory along the southern banks of the Save and the Danube, 
the question arises if what remains after this partition will be 
viable or condemned to beg in perpetuity, as Montenegro has 
done up to the present. No statesman of the dual monarchy 
would decide with a light heart to annex Serbian territory, 
but the measure may be imposed by necessity. Even if this 
annexation were to take place, the Serbs would by no means 
obtain preponderance over the Croats and Mussulmans ; the 
task of the monarchy will consist in arriving at such a solution 
of the Yugo-slav question that each nation and each creed 
may develop freely ; their liberty will be limited, be it well 
understood, by the superior interests of the State. By all 
means it is necessary to imbue these peoples with German culture, 
n©t only in the interests of the State, but also in their own." 

The Narodni Prava (June 10th, 1916) says : 

" The aim of this crime (the assassination of Serajevo) was 
to compass the dissolution of Austria- Hungary, and to present, 
themselves ^afterwards as its legitimate successors." 

On the occasion of the second anniversary of the declara- 



50 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

tion of war by Austria-Hungary against Serbia, the Bul- 
garian press emits the same opinions, defending Austria 
and attacking Serbia and the most legitimate Serbian 
national aspirations. 

The Narodni Prava (July 28th, 1916) wrote : 

" Russia, abusing her giant power, sanctioned as a moral 
action the crime of Serajevo and the pretension of Serbia to 
destroy the internal life of the neighbouring monarchy. She sanc- 
tioned, above all, the right of Serbia to Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
although the Serbian Government had definitely renounced 
those provinces by her solemn declaration of March, 1909." 

And the Echo de Bulgarie wrote on July 29th, 1916 : 

" It was an unavoidable struggle. The prestige and security 
of Austria-Hungary, even the honour of the Habsburgs, could 
not remain exposed to the plots of the sanguinary pan-Serbian 
propaganda. ... It was a struggle of legitimate defence. For 
the monarchy, the question was on all accounts grave. It 
was a dilemma. . . . On the west, Austria-Hungary transformed 
into legal possession the occupation of Bosnian territory, thus 
proclaiming her will to remain where she had been domiciled for 
thirty years." 

The Serbs, then, have no right either to Macedonia or 
to Old Serbia, or to eastern Serbia, or to Bosnia, or to other 
provinces of the Habsburg monarchy. On the Bulgarian 
side they are almost astonished that the Serbians can have 
the obstinacy to exist, whilst having so many opportunities 
of bearing other names less inconvenient . . . for Bulgarian 
statistics. 

The articles in the Bulgarian press have little or nothing 
to distinguish them from those in the German newspapers of 
the time. Thus the Munchner Neueste Nachrichten of July 
23rd, 1916, wrote to commemorate the ultimatum to Serbia : 

" The regicide government of the Karageorgevitch is the 
instigator of a shameless propaganda openly assigning as its 
object the snatching from the Austro-Hungarian monarchy 
of the provinces inhabited by the Yugo-Slavs and uniting them 
to Serbia in a great Serbian kingdom. The Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy and. its allies have destroyed the focus of the con- 
spiracies fathered by the Karageorgevitch family, and there 
is every reason to hope that after this war the ancient monarchy 
of the Habsburgs will be able to address itself to its great civilising 
task in the provinces of the Serbian and Croatian languages with- 
out fear of the hostilities which have never ceased to menace it." 

The Yugoslav idea was also opposed by the deputy 
Stefan Petkoff, who replied to the Temps and M. Herve 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE YUGO-SLAVS 51 

in the Narodni Prava (June 17th, 1916). The letter was 
dated from Zurich, June 4th : 

" We could never support a policy of equilibrium having 
for its object the submission of Bulgarian Macedonia and the 
Morava valley to the Serbian yoke, and the union with the 
Serbian kingdom of nations under the Habsburg monarchy, 
such as the Slovenes, Croats, and others, who have never been 
Serbs and who feel the deepest aversion for everything Serbian. 
For this reason the proposals of the Entente could not satisfy the 
aspirations of Bulgaria, who cannot remain indifferent to the 
expansion of a treacherous neighbour at the expense of our territory 
and that of others." 

The Bulgars have never been able to forgive the Serbs 
for having attempted, in the course of the polemic of 1913, 
to moderate Bulgarian megalomania by the agreement, 
among others, of political equilibrium. However, the 
Bulgars themselves, not only in the foregoing article but 
in all their political plans of 1915, relied on a principle far 
less tenable, that of national equilibrium. They had built 
up their plans of conquest and the Bulgarisation of Mace- 
donia, Old Serbia, and Eastern Serbia, with the object of 
inverting, in their favour, the numerical proportions of the 
two nations by assimilating three million Serbs. Yet so 
many centuries and so much political plotting in the Balkans 
had been powerless to alter this proportion. The same 
motive explainstheir renegade opposition to Yugo-slav union. 

The manner in which Bulgaria has been conducting by 
sword and pen the campaign against Serbia proves that 
the former has not let loose a struggle between two States 
but between two races. 

After the bitter disappointment in Macedonia where 
Bulgaria did not succeed in compassing her purpose, either 
by propaganda, or terrorism, or corruption, she could hardly 
expect to succeed, through the same system, in conquered 
Serbia, which, in consequence of a more developed civilisa- 
tion, had a stronger national consciousness. It is for this 
reason that Bulgaria began extirpating brutally all evidence 
of the national character in the conquered provinces, before 
undertaking systematic denationalisation, which would 
be inevitably a long and troublesome task. The rush of 
barbarous hordes, in ancient times, devastated the countries 
invaded, but no instance is to be found of such organised 
and reasoned vandalism as that by which the Bulgars, in 



52 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

penetrating Serbia, destroyed the wealth accumulated during 
a century of civilised life and overthrew time-honoured 
national monuments. They went so far even as to burn 
the books they rifled from private houses, to destroy or 
carry off to Sofia the tombstones in the cemeteries. Ever since 
the treacherous attack of October 13th, 1916, up to now, 
they have not ceased to work for the disappearance of 
everything" in the country having a Serbian character, by 
pillage, impoverishment, and ruin. All the notables, the 
educated, the teaching body, and the clergy have either 
been massacred or interned in Bulgaria. Among the hundred 
thousand Serbs who are prisoners or interned, hundreds 
die daily, whether from cold, hunger, or disease. It is 
evident that they are condemned to extermination. It is 
over this vast cemetery of a devastated land, where nothing 
is heard except the sighs of old men and the despairing 
moans of mothers and orphans, that the Bulgars have 
unfolded their national flag, and it is there they hope to 
extend their positions and found a new cradle of Bulgarism. 
The idea of the extermination of Serbia and the Serbian 
race inspires the whole Bulgarian press. Even when, in a 
conciliatory spirit, they spoke of a compromise with the 
Entente, they said of the Serbs : " Since the nation no 
longer exists why try to revive a corpse ? "* The organ of 
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Echo de Bulgarie,] speaks 
of Serbian skeletons, and says " there is no peace in the 
family of civilised nations for the megalomaniacal Serbian 
people." The Kambana% asserts that " no power can now 
save criminal Serbism." The Mz>§ says that " it was easier 
to cure the sick than to bring to life the dead man to-day." 
The description of the misery of the Serbs, who " now 
wander and beg in foreign lands," || is the same in the 
organ of Radoslavoff and in the poetry of the greatest 
Bulgarian poet, Ivan Vazoff . Whilst one glorifies the triumph 
of the Bulgarian glaive which has finished Serbia, the other 
sees in it Divine justice. But all and sundry write epitaphs 
on the tomb of Serbia, Serbism, and Yugo-slavia, united, 
free, and independent. 

* Gazette de Lausanne, June 7th, 1916. 

f Echo de Bulgarie, January 27th, 191G ; July 29th, 1916. 

% Kambana, August 24th, 191 6. 

§ Mir, April 19th, 191 6. 

|| Narodni Prava, September ist, 191 6. 



CHAPTER V 

BULGARIAN PEACE 

Entering on the war in the expectancy of gaining the 
most possible with the least effort, it was natural that 
Bulgaria should manifest a desire for peace as soon as her 
own object was attained. In November, 1915, already 
the Bulgars hoped to enjoy local peace in the Balkans ere 
a general peace supervened. The Bulgarian leaders declared 
that the Bulgarian task had ended with the crushing of 
Serbia, and spoke of a partial demobilisation of the Bul- 
garian army.* The Bulgarian Minister at Vienna, Tocheff, 
had a very disagreeable surprise during a conversation on 
the subject. When he was boasting of Bulgaria having 
accomplished her task in the Balkans, one of his German 
colleagues congratulated him on the " fortunate beginning 
of the new ally. ..." Disillusioned as to the chance of 
a local peace, the Bulgars redoubled their hopes of general 
peace. The Neue Zurcher Zeitung of December 28th, 1915, 
published a plan of peace, inspired by the Germans, which 
gave to the Bulgars the whole territory in Western Serbia 
occupied by the Bulgarian army. A combination not less 
sensational, the so-called separate peace of Montenegro, 
in January, 1916, deluded them with new hopes. 

Their claims being satisfied, the Bulgars could not 
understand why Europe went on fighting. So they began 
to attack the Entente, which did not bend to the conditions 
of peace dictated by the Central Empires. 

German hopes of Verdun awoke Bulgarian hopes of 
peace. The Prime Minister and the Generalissimo ex- 
pressed these hopes openly. J The Roumanian defeat gave 
rise to new ones. Radoslavoff declared to the correspondent 

* The Vossische Zeitung (November 22nd, 1915) has an interview 
(at Buda-Pesth) with Tontcheff, Minister of Finance, who said, " The 
liberation of the Bulgars in Serbia and Macedonia being accomplished, 
I think we are going to demobilise a part of the Bulgarian army." 

f Radoslavoff, Magyar or szag, April ioth, 191 6. Jostoff, Berliner 
Tageblatt, April 27th, iyi6. 

53 F, 



54 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

of the Kolnische Zeitung (September 7th, 1916) that he 
considered this to be the closing period of the war which 
would give final and decisive victory to the Central Alliance. 
The newspapers said the same. For example, the Zar'ia 
(October 4th, 1916) exclaimed : " The entrance of Roumania 
on the scene brings us near to peace." At Sofia peace 
was expected to come with the theatrical stratagem of the 
" restoration of Poland." The Mir of November 7th, 1916,* 
reports the following communication of Radoslavoff at 
a conference of his party : " The rumours of peace become 
more and more persistent. The restoration of Poland is 
looked upon as the first step towards peace." 

The second German theatrical act followed closely on 
the comedy of the restoration of Poland : the offer of peace 
in December, 1916, was acclaimed at Sofia as an act of 
supreme wisdom and noble magnanimity. The Govern- 
ment journals (all of December 13th) are so proud of it that 
they think they may give a lesson to the Entente. The 
Echo de Btdgarie reminds the Entente powers that " war is 
not a sport. Its prolongation is a crime against civilisation 
and humanity." The Narodni Prava faces them with the 
fact of " responsibility " before humanity and history 
" for the new victims of the war." The two opposition 
organs, Mir (Gueshoff) and Preporetz (Malinoff), admire in 
equal measure the magnificent German act. The Preporetz 
cannot admit that the Entente Powers will reject the truce 
and proposed peace " without even asking the conditions." 
In case they refuse, says the Preporetz, " war will be con- 
tinued with redoubled energy and greater obstinacy, which 
will ensure us greater successes still." The Mir makes an 
apology for the German act and Germany, saying : " The 
peace proposals made at a moment when there is every 
proof of the invincibility of the allies and their immense 
successes, have an added meaning, inasmuch as they deny 
in solemn fashion all the accusations that have been made 
against Germany and her allies, respecting the present 
war. ... It is an incontrovertible fact that the allies 
were forced to take up arms for the defence of their existence 
and for the free development of the respective nations. 
The allies have the right to hope that the conditions they 

* The Vossiscke Zeitung, November nth, 1916, had a telegram 
from Sofia to this effect, with the paradoxical comment that the restora- 
tion of Poland (under the sceptre of a German Emperor) " would bring 
peace nearer, and would bring Russia nearer to the Central Empires. . . ." 



BULGARIAN PEACE 55 

will lay down — if on the other side they are ready for 
negotiations — will serve as a basis for the establishment 
of a durable peace." The Narod, organ of the reformist 
Socialists (December 14th, 1916), declares that " without 
fear of being contradicted by facts, we can say that the 
voice of reason which gives the tone to the note of the 
allies cannot remain a voice crying in the wilderness/' 

All the newspapers published reports of the Sobranie 
when the President of the Council read the declaration 
which contained the peace proposals. The Chamber 
applauded frantically. Outside the building a crowd, 
growing denser every minute, awaited the great news. 
The extreme Socialist organ, Rabotnitcheski Vestnik (Decem- 
ber 13th, 1916), says : 

" There were many simple-minded people who expected 
the re-establishment of peace in the immediate future, and they 
were in despair when they learned the tenor of the Ministerial 
declaration." 

The first replies from Paris and London brought with 
them bitter disappointment, and excited the fury of the 
Bulgars against those who refused peace at the moment 
and under the conditions which suited them (the Bulgars). 

The Bulgarian journals of December 16th, 1916, all reply 
to Briand. The Narodni Prava thunders against him : 
" M. Briand supposes that the Entente Powers can demand 
of the Central Empires, who deplore so many victims and 
have gained so many victories, the status quo ante in Europe, 
and he supposes that they can conclude peace without 
indemnities, and can return to the pre-war frontiers under 
the same conditions." The Mir finds that " the rhetoric 
of Aristides Briand, instead of concealing the weakness of 
the Entente, emphasises it the more ; that is why we must 
not consider that the effort towards peace has completely 
failed." The Zar'ia says : " Only one thing can interest 
the world to-day — not who provoked the war, but who 
hinders the re- establishment of peace, and why they hinder it." 
The Preporetz speaks of the want of confidence and sincerity 
among the Entente Powers, which has perhaps inspired the 
offer made by the Central Powers. The Preporetz foresees 
the possibility of separating the Entente Powers by this action. 
The Socialist reformist organ, Narod, says : " The temper 
of the English press astonishes us. It has lost its balance." 
The semi-official Echo de Bulgarie discerns an " abyss " 
between the language of Briand and the real situation in 



56 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

France, and thinks that " only peace can save the Republic 
from irretrievable ruin." The Narodni Prava of December 
i8th also menaces the refractory Entente : (For the Entente) 
" peace ; what a frightful prospect ! By it the world will 
be re-born ; that is to say, by the destruction of English 
practices, Russian Tsarism, and the corrupt Parliamen- 
tarism of the French." 

This cruel disillusion did not stifle all hope. The Mir 
of December 21st, for example, writes that " the Entente 
thinks it can demand complete guarantees, a demand which 
will be considered as a fashion of negotiating. It is impos- 
sible to foresee what procedure will be employed and how 
long this mode of negotiating will last." The Dnevnik of 
December 28th goes so far as to glorify " the great diplo- 
matic victory obtained by the Central Powers and their 
allies by the peace proposals. The impression made by 
these proposals on neutrals as well as on the people and 
armies of the Entente is enormous. The path of negotia- 
tions — even direct — is open." 

This renewal of hope was due to the Wilson Note, 
whose coincidence with that of the Kaiser gave rise to most 
pleasant conjectures on the part of the Bulgars. " We 
cannot suppose," says the Mir of December 23rd, " that 
America will be satisfied with a plea of non-acceptance of 
the peace proposals without discussion. Such a refusal, 
if it occurs, will create in America feelings hostile to the 
Entente. . . . The United States are strong enough to 
exercise a decisive influence on the belligerents and oblige 
them to make peace." The Dnevnik of December 25th finds 
it " difficult to admit that Wilson would have engaged the 
honour and dignity of the most powerful of the neutral 
nations to sustain a refusal, however polite." The Zart'a 
of the same date is sure already that " the action of the 
United States will be indubitably successful. It appears 
that the Americans will not limit themselves to desires. 
The character of Wilson's Note shows that the intervention 
of the United States might have very disagreeable consequences 
for those belligerents who attempted to hinder the establishment 
of peace."* 

* This impatient longing for peace began to cause disquietude at 
Berlin. It inspired Count Reventlow to write an article in the Deutsche 
Taees Zeitung (January 13th, 1917), in which he draws attention to the 
intrigues of the Entente directed to separate Bulgaria from the Central 
Empires. He says : " For a good many weeks past the English press 
has evinced a remarkably benevolent tone towards Bulgaria — King 



BULGARIAN PEACE 57 

In December, 1916, they nursed the hope at Sofia of 
obtaining a new accessory in the great American Republic. 

If the first replies of Entente statesmen brought with 
them disillusion, the Note of the Entente provoked veritable 
rage at Sofia. The Mir of January 3rd, 1917, says : " The 
tears of the Entente shed for the fate of the small nations 
is a piece of hypocrisy without parallel," for England and 
France — according to the Mir — have behaved no better to 
Greece than Germany to Belgium, " who confronted her 
arms in hand." The Dnevnik (January 13th) says : " The 
refusal of the Entente breathes lies and hypocrisy. The 
response of the Central Powers is evidence of their strength ; 
without fanfaronade, they state that peace is necessary 
for humanity, whilst declaring coldly that peace will be 
obtained at the point of the sword. The Entente thus 
receives a new blow which she will ward off only with great 
difficulty." According to the Outro of January 15th, the 
Bulgarian Ministers have not concealed their opinion that 
the conditions " are wholly lacking in seriousness." The 
Zar'ia (January 15th) is declamatory. " Lies and hypocrisy 
reign in the world. The world desires peace and justice. 
Those who refuse them will be eternally cursed by future 
generations." The next day the Zar'ia pictures " Briand 
and Lloyd George, clad in the shining robes of apostles of 
liberty, striving to conceal their appetite for conquest at 
the expense of -peoples who have given proof of their superiority 
and vital force." 

This Bulgarian superiority was the subject of an article 
in the Mir (January 7th, 1917). The writer, the Deputy 
Boris Vazoff, brands the action of the Entente with the 
intention to deprive Bulgaria of her spoils of war, and 
" to destroy the results of an effort of ten centuries on the 
part of a race so civilised as that of Bulgaria." 

The civilisation of the Bulgarian race is made familiar 
to us at present by the way in which its soldiers make war, 
and the manner in which its statesmen pursue a policy. 
As for the results of the effort of ten centuries,' they are 

Ferdinand only is attacked with venomous hate. He is denounced as 
a monarch devoid of conscience, who has led the Bulgarian people out 
of the right path into a road that is leading them to" their ruin. The 
English journals let it be understood, nevertheless, that it is not too late 
yet perhaps for Bulgaria to return to the true and better way." 

Count Reventlow concludes his article by advising the allies to stand 
firm to the end. As " for the four allied States together, and for each 
in particular, to-day, as in the future, there is only one way to conquer : 
in common. Isolated, each of them would be condemned to perish." 



58 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

apparent to-day in the subjugated Serbian provinces, 
where they bear witness to the difference in culture and race, 

between the oppressed and the oppressors. 

* * 
* 

So long as the illusions of a German victory intoxicated 
them the Bulgarians did not think there was much to say 
on the conditions of a Bulgarian peace. The promise of 
the Kaiser to leave to Bulgaria all she had received from 
the hands of Mackensen, constituted the whole programme. 
Arguments were dispensed with — political, ethnographic, 
economic. They resort to them now at Sofia. The Sofia 
press said nothing about the conditions of peace until after 
the discussion on the restoration of Serbia which arose out 
of Mr. Asquith's speech in November, 1916. 

A few journals, and especially Vorwarts of November 
Iith, 1916, and the Berliner Tageblatt of the same date, 
commenting on the speeches of Asquith and the German 
Chancellor, spoke of the reconstitution of Serbia as of a 
matter of course, seeing that Austria at the beginning of 
the war had declared that she did not desire territorial 
conquests. These assertions were refuted by the Conserva- 
tive press. The Deutsche Tageszeitung invited the two 
journals to consider what the restoration of Serbia would 
mean. They appeared to ignore the fact that the partici- 
pation of Bulgaria in the war had for its main object the 
liberation of the Bulgars under Serbian domination. This 
alone made the restoration of Serbia impossible, and it seemed 
strange that German journals did not understand it. Mr. 
Asquith knew very well what he was saying when he raised 
the question of Serbia, and the Vorwarts, which was anti- 
Russian, ought to have perceived that a restoration of Serbia 
was incompatible with the needs of the alliance of the Central 
Empires with Bulgaria and Turkey, and the necessity of safe- 
guarding communications between Berlin, Sofia, and Con- 
stantinople. The Deutsche Tageszeitung advised the writers 
on the Vorwarts to consult the map in order to be convinced 
that the interests of Germany and Austria demand that 
Bulgaria should be the predominant power in the Balkans. 
Moreover, Austria would have to provide for measures of 
security against attacks by Serbia." 

The Berliner Tageblatt and the Vorwarts replied. The 
latter, of November 14th, under the title " The Restora- 
tion of Serbia," said : 

" We are accused of having brought about a misunder- 



BULGARIAN PEACE 59 

standing among our allies, above all between Germany and 
Bulgaria. The restoration of Serbia, it seems, would be tanta- 
mount to the abandonment of communications with Constanti- 
nople. We are astonished to learn that the Berlin-Bagdad 
plans, which were conceived before the war, imply the abolition 
of Serbia as an independent State and its absorption by Bulgaria. 
It is with no less amazement that we learn that we ought to con- 
tinue the war so long as the whole of Serbia is not annexed to 
Bulgaria. It is natural that they do not think of these inepti- 
tudes at Sofia ; they are thought of only at Berlin." 

On the contrary, they were less thought of at Berlin 
than at Sofia, but at Berlin they were compelled to stage 
the comedy in order to stimulate the persistence and fidelity 
of Bulgaria. Perhaps the Vorwarts wished to provoke 
declarations from Sofia. 



It turned out, however, that Sofia did not want to explain 
itself directly. For want of a better, it was the declaration 
of Radoslavoff to the correspondent of the New York World, 
Charles Wiegand, that may be regarded as the exact expres- 
sion of Bulgarian policy on the subject. The opposition 
organ Mir (November 15th, 1916) reproduces it, accom- 
panied by a significant comment : 

" With respect to Balkan affairs, the German Chancellor 
now, as formerly, maintains silence. The Reichstag also has 
not bestowed attention on the Balkans, except that at the 
opening of the session the Socialist Haase said that ' Serbia 
ought not to be destroyed.' It seems that Balkan questions 
are left to Austrian and Bulgarian politicians. . . . This time 
Asquith mentions the German declaration on the subject of 
the restoration of Belgium, and remarks, in passing, that Germany 
has made no declaration concerning Serbia. Asquith and 
Bethmann-Hollweg spoke on the same day, so that it was impos- 
sible for them to reply to questions put on either side. But 
what Bethmann-Hollweg has not done has been done by the 
President of Council, Radoslavoff, with the necessary com- 
petence. The latter stated to the correspondent of the New 
York World, textually, the following : ' The Balkan question 
is already settled. What will be the ultimate fate of Serbia ? 
What will her new frontiers be ? I do not want to expatiate 
on this subject, but one thing is certain : Serbia will never 
possess Macedonia ; that province now forms an integral part 
of Bulgaria, and it will remain Bulgarian.' Thus Radoslavoff 
laid down the minimum of the Bidgarian demands. ' A war so 
terrible as this naturally cannot terminate without territorial 
changes. Those nations which occupy foreign territory and 



60 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

which have gained advantage on the field of battle, have a 
right to secure better frontiers. Such territorial changes are 
absolutely legitimate, and nobody would continue the war on 
their account.' " 

Nevertheless, in lieu of a direct reply, the Bulgarian 
journals published other opinions concerning the Balkan 
question quite as interesting. 

The Echo de Bulgarie of November 13th : 

" Austria-Hungary, a great power, bore with Serbian follies 
with untiring patience, but she could not regard the attack 
on her dynast}^ as an incident without a morrow. She was 
bound to defend her dignity and her existence. ... If, at 
present, security is needed against the perturbers of harmony 
among the nations, we must begin by extinguishing the fire whence 
came the spark which set Europe alight." 

Here is a declaration which already looks upon Bulgaria 
as the arbiter of the affairs of Europe : 
Kambana, November 15th : 

" If Poland rises as a barrier in place of traitorous Roumania, 
a far more important role is incumbent on Bulgaria. Bulgaria 
is and will be one of the principal links in the chain of Central 
Europe. Germany requires that the place of Italy in international 
politics should be occupied by Bulgaria. Her interests demand 
that Bulgaria should be very strong, in order to be able to control 
and regulate in a distant future the political relations attaching 
to the object of the alliance of such and such an ally ; in other 
words, Bulgaria will become the sentinel of the alliance itself, 
and the confidence of our allies is so great, that when it becomes 
a question of a sentinel, it is the name of Bulgaria which will 
be pronounced. That is why there will be no need to create 
around us small principalities or dMninutive States to control 
us ourselves. The duties of Bulgaria above mentioned con- 
stitute the corner-stone of our policy, and no question can be 
raised touching this order of things." 

It is also of great interest to mention the interview of 
the German Socialist Sudekum, published on the same date 
in the Bulgarian Socialist organ Narod : 

" To the question of the Bulgarian, Socialist, Sudekum 
replied without hesitation, ' / think that Bulgaria ought to 
become the greatest and the central State in the Balkans. The 
Balkan Peninsula is a single mass, geographically ; so, politi- 
cally, it should be, as far as possible, a single country. Tran- 
quility will only be established in the peninsula when there is only 
one powerful State, which, supported by its neighbours, will 
guard its destinies." 



BULGARIAN PEACE 61 

The same tone and the same ideas prevail in the Austrian 
press. Thus the Vienna Reichspost published,- from an 
official source, a very interesting article from which we 
extract the following passages. 

Reichspost, December ioth : 

" Scheidemann has said : ' Not a man in Germany has 
entertained the opinion that German soldiers should shed 
their blood on the Somme, the Stochod, in the Dobrudja, or 
in the Carpathians in order to conquer Serbia for Austria, who 
declared on her first invasion of Serbia that she did not want 
any Serbian territory.' Try to imagine the effect of the words 
of the Imperial Chancellor if he said to-day, ' Yes, we want 
peace, but a peace that will give Serbia to Austria.' Millions 
of lips would have answered, ' What is Serbia to us ? ' Nobody 
in Germany would have wished to prolong the war, even by a 
day, to enrich the mixture of peoples of Austria with a few 
million Yugo-slavs." 

The Munchner Post wrote also : 

" If the restoration of Serbia constitutes a question of honour 
for England, it is not at all a question of honour for Germany 
that Austria should obtain Serbia. 

" When, in autumn 1915, under the command of Mackensen, 
the Austro-Hungarian and German troops penetrated Serbia 
on the north and north-east, whilst Bulgarian troops invaded 
it on the east, and the Serbian army was routed and destroyed, 
and its debris forced to flee into the Albanian forests, this absolute 
conquest of Serbia had strategic and politico-economic consequences 
far more important than is generally believed. For this victorious 
march removed the barrier which obstructed the joining of 
Central Europe with Bulgaria and Turkey ; it opened the 
Danube route as well as the Oriental railway through Belgrade, 
Nish, and Pirot, and brought into touch with each other Germany, 
Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey, thus forming them 
into a single organism. The result was shown immediately 
in the military sense, for the Anglo-French expedition and the 
attack on Constantinople were condemned to a complete check. 
The creation of a single block of States from the North Sea to 
the Persian Gulf was immediately esteemed in Germany to be 
the greatest military and political acquisition of the world war ; 
at the same time it was invested with the greatest economic 
importance. Personages who rule, economists and politicians 
of the most competent type, as well as undivided public opinion, 
are agreed that the creation of the enormous economic domain, 
symbolised by the Hamburg-Bagdad railway, serves not only 
to ensure the military and economic maintenance of the European 
war, but that the economic war which will follow peace will 



62 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

also be aided by it. All this will be as favourable to Germany 
as to Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, and Turkey. 

" The essential importance of the Serbian region, through its 
position, to the durable realisation of the alliance of the great block 
of States from the North Sea to the Persian Gulf cannot be con- 
tested. It is one of the reasons why the English consider the 
restoration of Serbia a question of honour. England is as 
much interested, and for the same reasons, in the fate of Serbia 
as in that of Belgium. As Belgium is necessary for her to close 
the British Channel to Germany and to serve England as a 
bridge-head on the Continent, so Serbia, in like manner, should 
serve to cut off the relations of Germany and Austria with the 
Orient, and form an Anglo-Russian advanced post guarding 
the great Danube way. 

" By this fact, England herself gives a clear answer to the 
question, ' What is Serbia to us ? ' The destiny of Serbia 
will be decided in the course of the peace negotiations. The 
Central Powers and their allies will know then what they 
can and what they ought to demand ; they will know then if, 
with the object of securing peace and economic life, they can 
permit the existence of an independent Serbia or not. Never- 
theless, the attempt of Scheidemann and consorts to refer the 
Serbian question to the well-known words of Bismarck con- 
cerning ' the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier ' as well as the 
attempt to excite opinion in Germany against Austria-Hungary, 
by a travesty of the true situation, ought to be frustrated from 
to-day. If the Central Powers decide that the State of the 
Karageorgevitches ought to disappear, their decision will not 
be inspired by the intention of conquering Serbia for Austria, 
neither by the desire to present Austria with several millions 
of Yugo-slavs, but it will be dictated by German interests as well 
as by Austro-Hungarian, Bidgarian, and Turkish interests." 

As we see, Austrian opinion is in perfect agreement 
with that of Bulgarians and Germans. As for the Hun- 
garians, they have been, at all times, partisans of any and 
every measure, however drastic, directed against the 
existence of Serbia, which they look upon as the patrimony, 
by some imaginary right, of their sacred crown of St. 
Stephen. 

The Magyar Hirlap of November 21st says of the taking 
of Monastir : 

" There are no longer any armies which, after twenty- 
eight months of war, could shake the situation established in 
the Balkans by the Bulgarian and German armies, which alone 
responds to international law and justice." 

The Budapesti Hirlap of November 10th attacks the 



BULGARIAN PEACE 63 

Hungarian Feminine Association which sent to the leaders of 

political parties lithographed appeals asking them to declare 

by the mouths of their orators in Parliament that the 

monarchy would not annex Serbia. The question of peace, 

said the appeal, depends on such declarations. It is naive, 

says the Budapesti Hirlap, to suppose that in order to 

conclude peace it only needs to reinstate that good and 

amiable little Serbia, who has always been a cunning enemy 

at our back. Really, that would be a master-stroke — 

restore Serbia, indeed ! 

These quotations show plainly that the question of 

the restoration of Serbia — the gordian knot of the Central 

Powers — includes both the " vital " interests of the Germans 

in the possession of the main artery to the East, and the 

basis of pretensions to Balkan imperialism of the Bulgars. 

The Serbian question in particular, as well as the Balkan 

question in general, is ear-marked as the fundamental 

question of the Germano-Bulgarian peace. 

# * 
* 

The discussion apropos of the German offer of peace in 
December, 1916, brought a little distinction into the Serbo- 
Bulgarian question. At least the Bulgars found a formula 
which, whilst appearing quite admissible, cost them hardly 
anything. They began by saying that the fate of Serbia 
was indifferent to them, and that they only demanded the 
annexation to Bulgaria of the Serbian provinces they had 
snatched, or, as they called it, " national reunion." 

A fortnight after the peace offer the Kambana of Sofia 
(November 24th) published — a little belated — some extracts 
from the Tageszeitung-Vorwarts discussion, arranged and 
commented on in Bulgarian fashion. 

" The Deutsche Tageszeitung has said that the Serbian ques- 
tion is solved in advance by the intervention of Bulgaria in the 
war : all the Bulgars who were under Serbian domination 
must return to Bulgaria, and in that case of what Serbia can 
one speak ? The Berliner Tageblatt takes part in the discus- 
sion, saying that absolutely nobody in Germany denies the 
right of Bulgaria to complete national unification ; however, 
if we look at the map, we can see that something still remains 
for Serbia. By that is meant that the question is reduced to 
the establishment of the ethnographic and historical frontiers of 
the nation. Our historians and ethnographers must speak 
plainly to the world on that." 

Impossible to realise, and unpopular at that pacificist 



64 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

epoch, the annexationist policy of Bulgaria turns into one of 
liberation. The care of the third of Serbia is left to Austria ; 
at Sofia nationalist science is enlisted to prove that the 
enslavement of the Serbs in two-thirds of Serbia is in reality 
the liberation and reunion of the Bulgars. 

This equivocal formula of capricious and arbitrary 
Bulgarian ethnography is repeated in the declaration of 
Radoslavoff to the Sobranie. The Echo de Bulgarie of 
December 30th, 1916, publishes the pungent approbation 
of the leader of the opposition, Malinorf : 

" M. A. Malinoff, leader of the democratic party, remarked 
that the policy followed by the Government was a necessity 
of state, and added that it would be an act of folly to seek to 
mine its foundations. The question of victory, said M. Malinoff, 
had been solved in a brilliant fashion. The declaration of 
December 12th (of Radoslavoff) had been everywhere received 
with deep satisfaction. The conqueror will consent to con- 
cessions in favour of the vanquished. The President of the 
Council had declared that he desires a peace in conformity 
with the interests of our allies, adding that the fate of Serbia 
did not interest him, that he had in view only the national unity 
of Bulgaria." 

This unanimity of the Bulgarian parties on the question 
of a Bulgarian peace was fully recognised by the President 
of the Council. According to the Echo de Bulgarie (January 
3rd, 1917) Radoslavoff said in his speech in the debate on 
the budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (December 
30th, 1916) : 

" I ought here to express my satisfaction with everything 
of import that has been said during the two days of debate 
on the Budget. On December 12th I was happy to have proof 
that the National Representation both of the Right and Left approved 
of the Government policy — for no protest came from either side." 

The President of the Sobranie, Vatcheff, confirmed the 
Bulgarian claims to the Morava and Macedonia — which 
means the whole of eastern Serbia, from the Danube to 
Lake Ochrida — to an editor of the Neue Freie Presse 
(January 17th, 1917). 

This was a cheap way of replacing the policy of the 
annihilation of Serbia by the formula of " indifference "to 
her fate. .,. ^ 

What they really thought at Sofia of the fate of Serbia 
at this period hardly differed at all from former pretensions. 



BULGARIAN PEACE 65 

The journal of the governmental Socialists, which finished 
with blind chauvinism, usually avoids mentioning Serbia 
in the list of countries having a right to live.* 

And this is all the Socialist organ has to say when it 
speaks of Serbia : 

' ' The rescue of the little Slav sister, Serbia, was only a pretext 
of Russia to take part in the conflict between Austria-Hungary 
and Serbia. Behind this, Russia dissimulated her desire to 
cut off the Austro-Germans from the route to the East, because 
their advance menaced her aspiration to seize the Bosphorus and 
Dardanelles." (Narod, December 25th, 1916.) 

It is rather an odd way of showing indifference to 
Serbia, by thinking only of devising means to cripple her, 
and by regarding the hearth-stone of a nation only as a 
road along which to pass. In reality the governmental 
Socialists of Sofia merely paraphrase the imperialist notions 
of Berlin. The Deutsche Tageszeitung was exceedingly 
pleased to find at Sofia zealous propagators of its ideas. 
It published a letter from that capital in which it is said : 

" To the declaration of certain German Socialists and Liberals, 
' What is Serbia to us ? ' they reply : Without permanent com- 
munications through Serbia, the Quadruple Alliance woidd not 
have existed ; on the contrary, it would have been led assuredly 
to the return of the old envelopment. Central Europe would be 
cut off from the south-east and the Central Powers would be 
strangled. That is why Serbia matters to us." 

In pursuance of the same theory, Count Reventlow 
and the Deutsche Tageszeitung began at length to define 
more exactly how much could be left of Serbia, at need, 
" if anything remains of it." 

In the Deutsche Tageszeitung Reventlow observed that 
the word " restoration " signified the putting of everything 
into the status quo ante. Thus the enemy understood it, 
as well for Serbia as for Belgium, with the intention of 
bringing back the anti-German situation before the war. "If 

* For instance, the Narod (November 13th, 1916) says : " After the 
restoration of Poland and the declaration concerning Belgium, the war 
loses all moral significance." The same hypocrisy comes out in the speech 
of Count Batthyany (of the Karolyi party) in the Hungarian Parliament — 
a speech intended to convince the Entente of the anti-annexation attitude 
of the Magyar opposition. Batthyany said : " We must protest in the 
most resolute way against the tendencies which would sacrifice our 
children and our brothers with the aim of conquest for the allies. We 
cannot sacrifice our children for the sake of conquests in Belgium, Russia, 
and France." We may believe the Hungarians when they claim that 
they ask for nothing in Belgium, Russia, and France . . . but what of 
Serbia, which thev do not mention ? 



66 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

we and our allies wished to set up something of what had 
been; the edifice must be suited to our convenience." 
. And the Deutsche Tageszeitung goes on to develop more 
openly the arguments against the restoration to the status 
quo ante : 

" Serbia must be diminished and remodelled inside and out, 
in a manner which, on the one hand, secures communications 
between Central Europe and Constantinople, and on the other, is 
in conformity with the interests of our Bulgarian and Austrian 
allies. It is precisely in what concerns Serbia that it is impor- 
tant to have the strongest and most durable guarantees possible. 
When Mr. Asquith remarked that the Imperial Chancellor had 
not yet spoken of the restoration of Serbia, he meant the 
restoration of the conditions existing before the war. The reply 
which Germany and her allies ought to make is simply that 
there is absolutely no question of restoring Serbia." (Journal de 
Geneve, December 5th, 1916.) 

The Narodni Prava said on December 30th, 1916 : 

" Dr. Radoslavoff has announced in his two telegrams 
that the whole of the Dobrudja will be annexed to Bulgaria. 
The year 1917 brings us the Morava, Macedonia, and the Dobrudja. 
Could anything be more pleasing and more grandiose than these 
results, and can we desire more ? From now we enter on posses- 
sion of what is our own property." 

The President of the Sobranie, Vatcheff, spoke to the 

Lokal Anzeiger as follows : 

" Bulgaria is firmly decided to keep all the Dobrudja as 
far as the Danube, as well as the purely Bulgarian provinces 
of Macedonia and the Morava region. . . . The mouth of the 
Danube will therefore be in the hands of a nation faithful to 
Mittel-Europa." (Reproduced by the Miinchner Nueste Nach- 
richten, January 23rd, 1917.) 

Mittel-Europa and Bulgarian chauvinism naturally 
aided each other in the campaign against the restoration of 
Serbia. But the Bulgars, feeling little confidence in their 
ethnographic argument, were fain to end by placing politics 
above ethnography. The Kambana (October 27th, 1916) 
said, for instance : 

"We have taken half of ancient Serbia (Northern Serbia), 
not because we dreamed of it as our national ideal, but because, 
after the annihilation of Serbia, the role of its inheritors devolved ' 
upon us." 

As for the national principle in these rapacious combina- 
tions, it is avowed openly in the press of Bulgaria's allies. 



BULGARIAN PEACE 67 

The Hungarian deputy Okolicsany writes on January 14th, 
1917, in the Pester Lloyd : 

" The Balkan States which have tended to expand at our 
expense have been beaten, and we hold with a firm hand that 
which will permit us to change the order of things in the Balkans. 
To-day the economic, political, and cultural life of these regions 
finds itself under the authority of the allies. We must build 
the future on the experience of the past, and we must not let 
ourselves be carried away by unjustified optimism, nor inspired 
by any sanctioned principle. We have to think that the develop- 
ment of national culture in the Balkan countries would, have corre- 
sponded with their desire for cur property. We must guard 
against a repetition of the past." 



Bulgarian ideas on peace only trace the limits of Great 
Bulgaria and Mittel-Europa : the proportions of that 
" something which remains of Serbia " are never defined. 
As we have seen already, it was not through indifference 
to the lot of Serbia that Sofia, Vienna, and Budapest were 
silent on the subject, but in consequence of the difficulty 
of the problem. All the same, something was whispered 
of it. It is always the old Bulgaro-Hungarian combination 
of January, 1916, which emerges in December, 1916 : a 
caricature of a State composed of little shreds of miserable 
country, the mountainous portion of western Serbia, with 
the Sanjak of Novi Bazar, a corner of Herzegovina, and 
Montenegro. Bulgaria is to annex all the east of Serbia, 
Hungary is to retain the northern portion of western Serbia. 
This partition would be agreeable to the views of the Central 
Powers. It would satisfy the Germans for the creation of 
Mittel-Europa ; the Hungarians, who would have a frontier 
contiguous to Bulgaria ; and Bulgaria herself, who would be 
mistress of two-thirds of occupied Serbia, and would 
establish her hegemony over the Balkan peninsula. 

This formless agglomeration of crippled provinces, 
unfitted for a free and prosperous existence, would have 
as leader — as of a group of blind men — the poorest of them 
all, Montenegro. Behold the Austro-Bulgarian Yugo- 
slavia ! 

From the first days of December we remark a change 
in the tone of the Austrian and Bulgarian press towards 
Montenegro. The Pester Lloyd of December 1st, 1916, 
published an article of Dr. Franz Ritter Ziska praising 
the extraordinary solicitude displayed by the military 



68 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

and civil authorities with regard to Montenegro. A few 
days later a Slovene journal of Laibach (Slovenitz, December 
6th) published the sensational news of a visit paid by 
Prince Mirko of Montenegro to the vault of the Capuchin 
monastery at Vienna, where he prayed before the tomb 
of the Emperor Francis- Joseph. This was on December 5th. 
Five days after, the 10th, the Tzetignske Novine, the organ 
of the Austrian military governor of Montenegro, published 
a very characteristic article : 

" Every Montenegrin ought to be informed on the manner 
in which the Entente pays its debt to him and to his sovereign. . . . 
At present, the Ministers of the Entente have forgotten little 
Montenegro. ..." 

The Tzetignske Novine then attacks England, who, it 
seems, would not allow America to send foodstuffs to the 
Montenegrins. 

" Even that has not sufficed. The Entente is now trying 
to deprive this people of its king, its existence, and its liberty. 
The Entente Powers wish to force King Nikola to renounce 
the crown of his ancestors." 

On its side, the Bulgarian press, which since the beginning 
of the war never let escape an opportunity of making coarse 
jests about King Nikola, echoes the change which has 
come about in the plans of the Bulgarian leaders. Thus it 
begins to speak of Montenegro in a very special manner. 

Developing the Bulgarian schemes, the Kambana 
(December 6th, 1916) says : 

" We and our allies ought to remain in positions in the 
Russian direction, which will guarantee quiet to our countries. 
The frontier should pass by the Truth or by Foscani-Galatz-Braila- 
Matchen. This line will guarantee Bulgaria, as well as Turkey 
and Constantinople, and at the same time secure the freedom 
of the Hamburg-Bagdad route. And if something were to be 
done for the Serbs, their ancient government of upper and lower 
Zeta, that is to say of the rocks of the Black Mountain, might be 
restored. It is within the right of Austria-Hungary to do this, 
and she alone can pronounce on the question." 

And some days later, in its issue of December 12th, the 
Kambana says : 

" The little State of Montenegro breathes in the shadow of 
the Austro-Hungarian monarchy, our ally. We can no longer 
speak of Montenegro as an enemy country." 

It is the unanimous opinion of the Austro-Hungarian 
and Bulgarian press that Serbia ought to disappear. The 



BULGARIAN PEACE 69 

Echo de Bulgarie, the Government organ par excellence, 
among other appreciations of the reply of the Entente, 
has the following in its leader of January 4th : 

" If there is a country against which, after Roumania, we 
ought to be on our guard, it is Serbia, with its inordinate ambi- 
tions and its pathological psychology. For unless we wish to 
close our eyes deliberately to the truth, it is impossible not to 
perceive the evil role played by this nest of conspirators in 
the fomentation of the war of nations, and no expiation would 
be sufficient to purge its crime. . . . 

"As for Montenegro, nobody envies her her mountains, nor 
the universal glory of her illustrious sovereign." 

* * 
* 

Even in discussing the eventuality of a union of Serbia 
and Montenegro on another basis than that projected at 
Vienna and Sofia, the Bulgars do not admit of a Serbia 
other than the wretched country around the steeps of the 
Black Mountain. 

The Zar'ia (March 15th, 1917) writes : 

" The ancient Serbian kingdom is itself very uncertain. 
The Entente well knows this : whatever efforts it puts forth 
in the future peace negotiations, it cannot revive a State which 
for ten years has not ceased to provoke trouble in the Balkans. 
At the best, it will succeed, perhaps, in tacking together 

A MINIATURE SERBIA WHICH, AFTER ALL THIS DEVASTATION, 
WOULD BE ONLY A LAY FIGURE IN THE POLITICAL LIFE OF THE 

Balkans of to-morrow. That is why the Entente is doing 
all it can to convince the inimical brothers (the Serbs of Serbia 
and Montenegro) that it is indispensable for them to resign 
themselves to a country in common." 

Bulgaria playing grand premier, Great Bulgaria omni- 
potent and alone in the Balkans, or at most surrounded by 
diminutive States with the role of puppets : those are the 
lines of a Bulgarian peace. 

This pretentious tone appears even in the most recent 
declarations of the head of the Bulgarian Government. 
In Parliament, replying to the criticism of the Opposition, 
Radoslavoff said : " Bulgaria has attained her ideal. She 
will not abandon her present frontiers, whatever happens, 
and her position is secure " {Narodni Prava, April 2nd, 

I 9 I 7)- 

To the editor of the Neues Wiener Tageblatt, Radoslavoff 

asserted as positive that " peace will bring with it, in any 

F 



70 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

case, a common frontier between Bulgaria and Austria- 
Hungary." (Neues Wiener Tageblatt, April 22nd, 1917.) 

The general situation of the Central Empires in the month 
of April, 1917, and the rather troubled atmosphere of the 
Sobranie when this declaration was made, detract from its 
sincerity and earnestness. But the tone shows the audacity 
of the adventurers of Sofia in playing high, up to the last 
chance. 

Bulgarian longings remain ever the same — those which 
decided Bulgarian intervention ; they are the putting of 
Serbia out of court, and the securing of the hegemony of 
Great Bulgaria in the Balkans. If these ambitious preten- 
sions surpass even those of the famous " German peace," 
it is because the Bulgars believe that they alone are insured 
against any eventuality in the great European conflict. 
They are putting their stakes on a double hazard, a German 
victory and an indulgent Entente. That is the notion 
expressed by Radoslavoff in Parliament on December 30th, 
1916, when, alluding to the offer of compensations in 1915, 
he declared he had received also from the Entente offers 
guaranteeing Bulgarian interests. 

That is the idea, too, expressed by Gueshoff in an article 
closely following on the declaration of Radoslavoff (Mir, 
January 2nd, 1917). Counting, in case of need, on the 
former adhesion of the Entente Powers to the San Stefano 
combination, Gueshoff, with the same confidence as Rado- 
slavoff, asks : " Can there be any longer a question as to the 
frontiers of the Bulgarian people ? " 

Great Bulgaria " Mittel-European," against the Entente 
vanquished, or the Great Bulgaria of San Stefano with the 
Entente cajoled : the adventurers of Sofia will play this 
double game, without risk or peril, to the last hour. 



CHAPTER VI 

ALWAYS WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 

The aims of Bulgarian policy in themselves, formulated 
as we have seen, have always inclined Bulgaria to an 
understanding with Austria-Hungary. This has been 
favoured, doubtless, by the German princes who have 
reigned over Bulgaria, but the influence of those princes 
could only be efficacious thanks to the agreement of the 
aims the two States assigned to themselves. 

The reasons for the Bulgarian leaning towards Austria 
must be sought, chiefly, in Bulgarian distrust of Russia, 
and in Bulgarian designs against Serbia. 

Russophobia was born in Bulgaria on the very day when 
the Russians were spending their blood and treasure in the 
Balkans to deliver a Christian and Slav people. This 
Russophobia was, at the outset, only a partial and tem- 
porary discontent provoked by the innumerable and 
inevitable discomforts inseparable from war, discomforts 
accentuated and extended by the abuses of functionaries 
and mistakes made by a new administration in a new 
country. The incompatibility of temper and character 
between liberators and liberated, and the instinctive 
distrust of the Bulgar for all that is foreign and more 
powerful than himself, also counted for much. But real 
Russophobia was only created when these troubles of the 
early days of freed Bulgaria began to be exploited by 
Bulgarian politicians, ambitious, greedy, and impatient 
to wield power, and to profit by all the honour they feared 
to see remaining in the hands of the Russians. The political 
sharpers in Bulgaria grafted on these discontents the myth 
of the Russian peril, the necessity of keeping Russia away 
from the Balkans, and preventing her from taking the 
Straits. A Bulgaria contented with its natural boundaries, 
friendly and united with its neighbours, had no need to 
distrust Russia. But for a Bulgaria ambitious and 

71 



72 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

imperialistic, seeking to become the mistress and great 
power of the Balkans, distrust of Russia was not a mere 
whim, it became a political principle. 

To combat Russian influence on one hand and to create 
a great Bulgaria at the expense of Serbia on the other, it 
was necessary to side with Austria-Hungary. These two 
motives explain the unanimity of Bulgarian political parties 
as to an Austrophil policy. For if the Russophobia of some 
parties rendered them manifestly Austrophil, the Bulgarian 
tendency to encroach on Serbia forced the Russophil parties 
into constant collaboration with Austria-Hungary. 

It was, above all, in the years immediately preceding 
the European war that Bulgaria drew more closely to 
Austria-Hungary. The simultaneous violations of the treaty 
of Berlin — the proclamation of Bulgarian independence and 
the annexation of Bosnia in 1908, by an accord, avowed and 
demonstrative — manifested Bulgaro-Austrian complicity in 
an anti-Serb and anti-Slav policy. It was the present 
leader of the opposition, Malinoff, who chose the moment 
most grievous for Serbia and most humiliating for Russia 
to make a Bulgarian parade with German assistance. The 
eighth anniversary of that Germano-Bulgarian and dynastic 
date is celebrated in the organ of the Bulgarian democrats 
and of Malinoff, who was President of the Council in 1908. 
The Preporetz profits by the opportunity to expatiate on the 
services rendered by its party to country, king, and the 
policy of sacred egoism void of scruples. The lines devoted 
to the elevation of Ferdinand of Coburg to roj^al dignity 
are very emphatic, although the Preporetz represents the 
democrats. Here is a passage from the article, entitled 
" September 22nd and October 5th, 1908," which appeared 
in the Preporetz of October 4th, 1916 : 

" Eight years have passed away since in the old church 
of the Forty Martyrs of Tirnova the act was read by which 
Bulgaria was proclaimed an independent Empire. Thousands 
of people saluted the new Tsar with deference. And he mounted 
a dais and addressed a few fitting words charged with emotion 
to the people. . . . Sofia was en fete as never before. Twenty 
thousand people were massed before the palace to greet the 
new Tsar, and the new title of the Bulgarian State. 

" Eight years have elapsed since that historic date. Impor- 
tant events have taken place in that period, a short space in 
the life of a nation. Treacherous Serbia has felt our vengeance ; 
to the armies which have come from all the corners of the earth 
to aid our enemies we have shown how one defends one's countrv 



ALWAYS WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 73 

and freedom. September 22nd was celebrated by the founders 
of Independence as a national effort, a result of purely Bulgarian 
policy. And the moral to be drawn from the festival of to- 
morrow is of the greatest value. It teaches us that every 
national effort, undertaken solely in view of national interests^ 
must be always crowned with success." 

The leaders of the two Russophil parties, Daneff and 
Gueshoff, abandoned Serbia, although she was allied with 
Bulgaria in the struggle with Austria on the vital question 
.of a Serbian outlet to the sea. The political conversations 
of Daneff at Vienna in October, 1912, prove that even under 
the most Russophil regime Bulgaria never ceased to seek 
and to contrive that she was assured of Austrian good- 
will. 

The attitude of the Bulgarian press during the campaign 
of Austro-Hungarian newspapers against Serbia in the 
critical days of July, 1914, and during the first year of the 
Serbo- Austrian war of 1914-1915, speaks plainly enough 
of the latent and tacit understanding which became open 
and written in the treaty of 191 5. 

This was emphasised by the President of the Council 
in his declaration to the representatives of the Vienna 
press {Pester Lloyd, February 16th, 1916) : 

" We Bulgarians work with our allies for a common cause. 
We have no separate interests. . . . Bulgaria and Austria- 
Hungary are not only allies, but they have been for long on 
terms of the most intimate friendship ." 

Declarations in the same sense were made on both sides : 
the Echo de Bulgarie of February 8th and 9th, 1916 (article 
by the Vienna journalist, M. Sachs), says : 

" Going back as far as the treaties of San Stefano and Berlin, 
we find that the Austrian question was linked with the question 
of creating a new Bulgaria. Thirty years later the two ques- 
tions came to the front again, and the proclamations of the annexa- 
tion of Bosnia and the independence of Bulgaria were launched 
from Vienna and Sofia almost at the same moment, whilst the 
Eastern Question finished by becoming a question of Macedonia, 
pure and simple. Thus the force of circumstances gave birth 
to a pact uniting all the elements contributing to a perfect 
alliance, the same friends, the same enemies, and, last of 
all, the total absence of any antagonism susceptible of troubling 
the perfect harmony of their reciprocal interests. What Austria- 
Hungary knows of the national aims of the Bulgars shows her 
fully that the policy of this nation will never raise difficulties 
against the internal policy touching the nationalities of the monarchy, 



74 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

whilst the latter has no interest in hindering the development 
of the national programme of Bulgaria." 

The visit of the King of Bulgaria to the Austrian head- 
quarters at Vienna is commented on in the Bulgarian 
journals by vague generalities and remarks on the long- 
standing friendship which unites the dual monarchy and 
Bulgaria. 

The Echo de Bulgarie (January 15th, 1916) says : 

" Of all the Western Powers Austria-Hungary has taken the 
liveliest and at the same time the most friendly interest in the young 
Balkan State since the day it ivas constituted. . . . Baron -Burian, 
who has charge of the foreign policy of the Dual Empire, in 
these glorious days, has been a witness to the stubborn fights 
the little principality has had to maintain from its beginnings 
to preserve its independence ; he was also one of the sagest advisers 
of our politicians of that time. His predecessors at the Ballplatz, 
Count Berchtold and Count iErenthal, were also, in divers 
circumstances, confirmed partisans of a strong Bulgaria in the 
Balkans, and nowhere did our misfortunes in 1913 cause more 
sincere sorrow than in the dominions of the monarchy. And 
nowhere more than in Bulgaria was there a firmer conviction of 
the necessity for the empire of the Habsburgs to defend its security 
and integrity against a turbulent and insatiable neighbour, who 
thought itself strong enough to brave the whole world. It 
is in his quality as an allied sovereign, supreme chief of a 
victorious army, and field-marshal of the Austro-Hungarian 
army, who guards faithfully its traditional virtues, that the 
King of Bulgaria has been received at the headquarters of the 
Archduke Frederick. The bridge between East and West has 
been built upon indestructible foundations. . . ." 

. The Narodni Prava (February 18th, 1916) Government 
organ, enumerates the advantages Bulgaria has obtained 
from Austria : 

" She gave us — some thirty 3'ears ago — our beloved King, 
who enjoys the affection of the entire Bulgarian people. It 
was with the help of Austria- Hungary that, eight years ago, 
Bulgaria declared herself independent. And it was Austria- 
Hungary who, in 1913, first raised her voice to defend Bulgaria, 
humiliated and devastated. 

" When Bulgaria consented to break Turkey, in the specious 
hope of obtaining Macedonia, whilst really being used as an 
instrument for the profit of others, she did not suspect that 
she was digging her own grave, and that already she had one 
foot in it. It was then that the Austrian Minister at Sofia, 
Count Tarnowsky, called the attention of our statesmen to 
the dangers which caused him heart-pangs. In the establish- 



ALWAYS WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 75 

ing of the policy of the Triple Entente in the Balkans he saw 
not only a menace to Bulgaria, but the ruin of Austria-Hungary. 
Count Tarnowsky discerned that a great Serbia was rising in 
the Balkans with the definite object of undermining Bulgaria and 
serving as a rampart between Germany and Austria-Hungary on 
one side and Bulgaria on the other. He devoted all his powers 
to change this situation. . . . Two years have sufficed to van- 
quish the policy of the Entente in the Balkans and to overthrow 
and destroy Serbia." 

The Mir of Gueshoff published in its issue of March 6th, 
1916, extracts from an article in the Continental Times of 
Berlin, which strove to demonstrate the necessity for Austria- 
Hungary to secure once for all its situation in the Adriatic 
and to muzzle Serbia and its Yugo-slav schemes. After 
extracting the pith of the article, the Mir concluded thus : 

" The passages we have quoted define in clear and categoric 
fashion the interests of Austria-Hungary and the questions 
which our new neighbour desires to solve. These Austro- 
Hungarian projects can be easily co-ordinated with ours." 

* * 
* 

Anticipating the victory of the Central Empires, the 
National Party, of which Gueshoff is the leader, took 
several opportunities of calling attention to its own part 
in keeping up good relations between Bulgaria and Austria- 
Hungary. Thus it turned to account the visit of the Bul- 
garian deputies to Vienna, which was made only by members 
of the Government majority. In its issue of May 4th, 1916, 
the organ of the National Party, the Mir, wrote that Austria- 
Hungary, through its geographical position, was " rather a 
Balkan State, though one having a vast world policy. For 
that reason its relations with the Balkans were closer than 
those of other States." 

" When our party desired to make the first commercial 
treaties with the Great Powers, and thus put an end to the 
economic slavery that Bulgaria had to bear until then, as a 
vassal principality of Turkey, it addressed itself first of all to 
Austria- Hungary , and concluded with her the first treaty. . . . 
The national party has never ignored the importance of Austro- 
Hungarian interests in the Balkans. The favouring circum- 
stance, that we have nothing — as is the case with the Serbs, 
Roumanians, and Italians — to dispute with Austria-Hungary 
places us in a privileged situation with regard to the monarchy." 

Gueshoff 's journal regrets that its party, which can 



76 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

invoke such Austropbil traditions, is not represented in 
the delegation to Vienna : 

" In the relations between Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary," 
writes the Mir, " we ought only to support and strengthen 
acts capable of drawing closer the bonds between the peoples 
and the States without regard to persons and parties. ... If a 
rather marked reaction against Austria-Hungary was mani- 
fested in 1894, when Stambouloff quitted office, it was because 
a special character was attributed to the relations with Austria- 
Hungary on account of the events of 1886-1894. . . . But we 
make a mistake when, without necessity, we only send delegates 
of one party where all the nation ought to be represented." 

The Dnevnik of May 5th, 1916, wrote on the same 
subject : 

" In speaking of the necessity of an alliance between Bulgaria 
and Austria-Hungary we emphasised the impossibility, apart 
from that alliance, of securing the principal ways of communica- 
tion between Europe and Asia, the focus of those ways being 
at Vienna and their rays in Bulgaria. Insisting again on this 
circumstance, we would remark that in Austro-Hungary as 
well as here people continue to be fully conscious of the necessity 
of a reciprocal tinder standing, and everything possible is being 
done to come to a permanent friendship. The great Austro- 
Hungarian monarchy, which has always taken into consideration 
our needs and interests, has every facility to prove that we also 
take her interests into account. There is not, nor can there be, 
any room for misunderstandings, since we have succeeded, by 
a common effort, in suppressing the cause of Balkan disorders." 

The Neue Freie Presse wrote on May 3rd, 1916, when 
the Bulgarian deputies arrived at Vienna : 

" The alliance of Bulgaria with the Central Empires has been 
imposed by the force of things as a natural consequence of historical 
evolution. Neither Bulgaria nor Austria can frame a policy 
without this alliance. Bulgaria could not live by the side of 
perfidious Serbia, ready for any treachery ; we, too, could no 
longer support the sly malice, the subversive acts of treason 
and hatred. Bulgaria knew she could not prosper with Serbia 
alongside, that she could not remain free, nor breathe freely. . . . 
Russia also is a mortal enemy of Austria, and in the common 
peril is to be found the natural basis of the Austrian alliance with 
Bulgaria." 

The Neue Freie Presse (June 7th, 1916) is informed that 
the Consul-General of Bulgaria at Vienna, Rudolf Stiasni, 
having spent four weeks in Bulgaria, has communicated 
his observations to the Vienna press. He has stated that 



ALWAYS WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 77 

the Bulgarian feelings towards Austria-Hungary are most 
favourable. Owing to the concordance of interests, the old 
Bulgarian sympathy with the monarchy has not only been 
maintained but is still deeper. The alliance with Austria 
is dictated to the Bulgars not only by their interests but 
also by their sentiments. When the German deputies 
arrived at Sofia in June, 1916, the same manifestations of 
traditional friendship with the Central Empires, with Austria 
especially, were repeated. The former Russophils, in 
opposition rather to the party which succeeded to the 
power they had held, than to the Government policy, 
could not allow to the Liberal Party the exclusive merit of 
friendship with Austria-Hungary. The Nationalists do 
not wish it to be forgotten — we have already seen that in 
the articles of the Mir — that they also, in their time, 
cherished friendly relations with Austria-Hungary. 

Gueshoff's Mir wrote on June 25th, 1916 : 

" Bulgaria in this war has cast in her lot with that of the 
Central Empires ; it is for this that sympathy for her is great 
in Germany. In the welcome given to our deputies, this sympathy 
was manifested with the force of the elements let loose. Although 
the government majority was alone represented there, Germany's 
expression of feeling was addressed to the entire Bulgarian 
nation. Four years ago to the day we wrote in the Mir, when 
our Tsar, accompanied by the then Bulgarian Prime Minister, 
Ivan Gueshoff, visited the Emperor-King of Austria-Hungary 
at Vienna and the German Emperor at Berlin : ' This meeting 
will strengthen in us the political idea which had guided us up 
to the present in this short period of our freedom. We have 
not ceased to examine the importance of the interests of the two 
empires in the Orient, and have considered that the accord of those 
interests with those of the small Balkan States was one of the surest 
guarantees of peace and the orderly development of the nations, 
great and small, of the European East. We are of opinion that 
the visit of our Tsar will confirm this view. . . .' We have proved 
by our past that we are in no wise. a people of prejudices , a capricious 
people, but that we know how to calcidate, persuaded that alone 
'good reckonings make good friends.' If the Bulgarian people 
had not possessed these qualities, it would not have attained, long 
before this war and even before the Balkan war, the enviable posi- 
tion which made it honoured and esteemed in London as in Berlin, 
in Petrograd as well as Vienna. Recalling the not distant past, 
when the Great Powers treated us and the other Balkan nations 
as minor peoples ; a witness so long to the rivalry of the Great 
States at the expense of the small ones — whose interests served 
merely as small change, and were sacrificed more than once — 



78 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the Bulgarian people has been always very distrustful in its inter- 
national relations. That distrust must disappear completely."* 

* # 
* 

The greater number of the articles treating of the 
natural character of Austro-Bulgar friendship explain at 
length in what consists the Austro- Russian rivalry in the 
Balkans. 

The Narodni Prava of June 25th, 1916, published an 
article on the strength of the alliance with the Central 
Empires, proving the identity of Bulgarian and Austro- 
Hungarian interests : 

" The instinct of self-preservation has determined Austria- 
Hungary to join her interests with those of Germany on one hand, 
and those of Turkey and Bulgaria on the other. ... Russia 
needs in the Balkans a strong and energetic advance-guard 
against Austria-Hungary, an advance guard which, at the 
decisive moment, would help her to destroy ^istria-Hungary 
and to conquer Constantinople. To ward off Russian projects 
in the Balkans Austria-Hungary has striven to create as strong 
a counter-guard. ... So long as it was believed that Russia 
wished to confide to Bulgaria the task of Russian sentinel, 
Austro-Hungarian sympathies inclined to Serbia. But when 
it became clear that Bulgaria valued her independence above 
everything, and considered the installation of Russia at Con- 
stantinople as dangerous, the roles were inverted. . . . Russia 
turned towards Serbia, whilst Austria-Hungary succeeded in 
gaining sympathy in Europe, so that our independence was 

* The titles of Austria- Hungary to Bulgarian gratitude are enumerated 
at length in a political inventory drawn up by the former Bulgarian 
Minister in Serbia, Tchaprachikoff, which appeared in the Neue Freie 
Presse of October 15th, 191 6 : 

" I must acknowledge here all our gratitude to Austria-Hungary 
who has supported the realisation of our national ideal, and in aiding us 
has taken into account our feelings of independence. Understanding 
our tendency towards independence, she was the first of the powers to 
abolish her post and telegraph offices in Bulgaria. Again, she took the 
lead in facilitating the settlement of Bulgarian foreign questions. Austria- 
Hungary was the first of the great Powers to conclude a treaty of com- 
merce with us, and to consent to a loan in 1888. Later, she granted us 
a loan without real security. It was Austria-Hungary who first renounced 
her capitulation rights in Bulgaria, without asking for compensation, 
notwithstanding that she had greater interests and a larger number of 
subjects in our country than any other foreign State. All this shows 
that Austria-Hungary has really superior common interests with Bulgaria. 
It was in 191 3 that the Danubian monarchy demonstrated that she 
nourished a sincere friendship for Bulgaria. The Bulgars also hold in 
remembrance the activity of Burian who inaugurated the policy of agree- 
ment with Bulgaria, when the latter was — forgive the expression — still 
in swaddling clothes ; then already he facilitated the development of her 
independence." 



ALWAYS WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 79 

protected from Russian anger. . . . Since that moment until 
now, the opposition of Bulgarian to Russian interests on the question 
of Constantinople and its hinterland has become more and more 
accentuated ; in the same way the opposition of Bulgarian interests 
to those of the Serbs — those spoiled children of Russia — have 
become more and more evident in Macedonia and on the littoral." 
On the occasion of Sazonov's resignation, and inspired 
by the same ideas, the Pester Lloyd of August 27th, 1916, 
interpreted the accord of the Balkan nations — the Balkan 
Alliance — as the work of Russia directed against Austria- 
Hungary and Germany : 

"In a series of articles which began to appear at the end 
of July, the Novoie Vremia deals with the former Minister of 
Foreign Affairs, Sazonov. . . . The plan of Izvolsky and 
Sazonov had one aim : to direct the Balkan Alliance against 
Austria-Hungary. Sazonov did not think, certainly, that the 
Balkan Alliance would be strong enough, in itself, to attack 
our monarchy. When the Balkan Alliance upset Russian 
plans, and attacked Turkey, Sazonov hastened, through his 
friend Poincare, to launch the famous formula of statu quo, 
intended to protect the Balkan peoples from the vengeance 
of the Turks. He believed that the former would be certainly 
vanquished. . . . The million Balkan bayonets, in which the 
Paris press saw with premature joy one of the principal factors 
in its plan of revanche, could not be irrevocably lost. But 
this same plan, cleverly modified, fell to pieces in 1913. Russian 
anger was let loose terribly against Bulgaria, who refused to 
discern her interests in a conflict with Austria-Hungary and in the 
future Russian plans. Russian fury may be justified. The 
world war would have turned out otherwise if the Russian 
scheme had succeeded. Russia is now obliged to struggle 
simultaneously against the Central Empires and Turkey, and 
the Novoie Vremia does not cease to display its anger, and to 
lament that the opportunity was let slip to conquer first the 
Central Empires and afterwards Turkey. ..." 

The Pester Lloyd attributes an important role to the 
Austrian Minister at Sofia, Tarnowsky, in the work of 
breaking up the Balkan Alliance. It was the evil influence 
of Austria-Hungary in 1913 — to which, according to the 
information in the Pester Lloyd, Gueshoff and Daneff 
themselves no longer attempted resistance — that prompted 
implacability towards the Serbs and brought on the war. 
The peace of Bucharest was the result of Bulgarian impotence 
and Austrian intrigue, facts which do not hinder the Bulgars 
from putting the blame on the shoulders of Russia. 

On the occasion of Count Tarnowsky's departure from 



80 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Sofia, the Pester Lloyd of November 25th published the 
following letter from that capital : 

" Five years ago Count Tarnowsky was charged with a 
delicate mission at Sofia. When, on February 25th, 1912, the 
Balkan Alliance was concluded, it was not long a secret for 
Tarnowsky. When the Balkan war broke out and Bulgaria 
sacrificed her best forces to realise her Macedonian ideal, Tarnow- 
sky foresaw and foretold the misfortune, and begged the most com- 
petent Bulgarian circles to be more circumspect in their relations 
to their allies. Gueshoff and Daneff comprehended, indeed, the 
value of this advice, and endeavoured to get out of the trap which 
Russia had laid for them ; but it was too late, and the catastrophe 
could not be avoided. ... In this unhappy hour the Austrian 
Minister sustained the broken courage of Bulgaria and raised 
his voice for her. With all his energy he laboured for the restora- 
tion of Bulgarian national strength, and so prepared the ground 
for the alliance with Bulgaria. . . . 

" When the world war came there was rivalry among the 
diplomats in Bulgaria, to incline her this way or that. The 
Entente tried with all its might to become mistress of the Balkans, 
and neglected no means in order to succeed. . . . But the wise 
representative of the monarchy was at his post and toiled inde- 
fatigably for the alliance of Bulgaria with the monarchy, in which, 
at length, he succeeded. ..." 

It was in this sense that the President of the Council, 
Radoslavoff, spoke to the correspondent of the Pester Lloyd. 
The Minister of Finance, Tontcheff, reminded him at the 
same time of the part played by Count Tarnowsky in the 
conclusion of the Germano-Austro-Hungarian loan to 
Bulgaria, for without that financial basis the realisation 
of the present policy would have been difficult. The loan 
was, in fact, the work of Tarnowsky. . . . On the initiative 
of the Bulgarian Economic Society, the Secretary of the 
Chamber of Commerce and Industry at Vienna, M. Pistor, 
gave a lecture in the hall of the Chamber of Commerce 
and Industry at Sofia on the economic relations between 
the Danubian monarchy and Bulgaria. Touching this 
lecture the Echo de Bulgaria of November 10th wrote : 

" Speaking of the ties existing between home and foreign 
politics on the one hand and political economy on the other, 
the lecturer showed that Vienna, by its position, was the link 
between West and East. The Danubian monarchy, owing to 
its internal situation, the multiplicity of nationalities contained 
in it, and the problems incumbent on it in the eastern portion 
of its territory, has no aims at expansion. Austria-Hungary 
desires the development of its allies in the Balkans on con- 



ALWAYS WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY Si 

dition that neither Italy nor Russia set foot there to menace its 
interests." 

Manifestations are repeated on every occasion. The 
Echo de Bulgarie of November 18th speaks of the " harmony 
of interests," the " reciprocal sympathy of the two nations," 
the " collaboration in which the two parties are bound 
each to each for life and death." 

The Mir of October 17th emphasises the importance of 
the combats sustained on all her frontiers by Austria- 
Hungary, who has succeeded in " surviving all trials and 
overcoming all difficulties by her own strength and that of 
her allies." The Echo de Bulgarie of October 23rd, 1916, 
opines that " in the struggle she has given proof of a force 
and tenacity which border on the miraculous," and that 
" Austria-Hungary comes out of the test rejuvenated and 

strengthened." „, ^ 

* 

We cannot terminate this chapter without mentioning 
also the manifestations which took place on the death of 
Francis- Joseph. 

At the funeral the Bulgarian Government was repre- 
sented by a special embassy, at the head of which were the 
Minister of War, General Naidanoff, and the Minister of 
Public Instruction, Pecheff. 

Pecheff profited by his sojourn at Vienna to make 
declarations to the Neue Freie Presse on the close and long- 
standing ties which united Bulgaria and Austria-Hungary. 
He insisted particularly on the historic meeting of the 
Emperor Francis- Joseph and King Ferdinand at Buda- 
Pesth on the eve of the declaration of Bulgarian independ- 
ence and the annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, events 
followed by other acts quite as important for Austro- 
Bulgarian friendship. 

In lamenting the death of the Austro-Hungarian sovereign, 
whom it called the great benefactor of the Bulgars, the Sofia 
press insisted on the friendship and community of interests 
of the two peoples. 

The Mir of November 22nd wrote : 

"... His reign was important above all as having repre- 
sented the evolution of the federative principle. Within the 
limits of his Empire, and under the same central power, Germans, 
Tcheks, Poles, Magyars, Croats* all enjoy extensive autonomous 

* The organ of the signatories of the Serbo-Bulgarian Alliance 
ignores the existence of millions of Serbs under the monarchy. 



82 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

rights. During his reign internal questions gave occasion to 
constant rivalry between the diverse ethnic elements, but this 
rivalry did not tend to the founding of separate States, indepen- 
dent and hostile to each other, but to create absolute equality, 
not of duties only, but also of the rights of each nationality. . . . 

" The figure of no sovereign in history presents a greater 
degree of abnegation, nor of elevation above personal feelings, 
family ties, and those of nationality. No one has better personi- 
fied the type of the true statesman who aims at the well-being 
of all his subjects, without distinction of religion, nationality 
or race, than the great deceased." 

The Narodni Prava of November 22nd wrote : 

" The insatiable appetites of Russia, France, and England 
rose against the pacificism of the Emperor Francis- Joseph ; the 
Emperor, whilst the greatest pacificist in the world, was destined 
to witness the extension of the scourge of war to all Europe. 

" We in Bulgaria have always felt the most cordial sympathy 
for the Emperor Francis-Joseph, and we have always found in 
him a helper to defend our independence. Now the Emperor 
is dead, after having become the great ally of Bulgaria." 

The Kambana of the same date wrote : 

" Events have proved, during the great war above all, that 
the policy of Francis-Joseph knitted ties between the countries 
constituting the dual monarchy so strong that they will survive 
the white-haired monarch. ... As we have said, Francis- 
Joseph always felt friendship for Bulgaria, and more than once 
in critical moments he intervened with his high authority in 
our favour." 

The Dnevnik of November 22nd said : 

" We Bulgarians have special reasons for regretting the 
great deceased. He was a good friend to Bidgaria, and every time 
our country had to face difficulties he lent her a helping hand." 

The same journal wrote the next day : 

"It is thanks to him that the question of the respective 
importance of Bulgaria and Serbia in the Balkans was solved 
in the sense that a Great Serbia with its aspirations hostile 
to Austria-Hungary would never become a safe ally. And an 
open way was found through the common work of Austria- 
Hungary and Bulgaria. It was opened on the day that it was 
understood that a great Bulgaria, like Austria-Hungary, would 
find her highest interest in guarding the Balkans, as one guards 
one's most precious possessions, in order to safeguard herself." 

The Balkanska Pockta of November 23rd wrote : 
" Endowed with extraordinary sagacity and energy, he 
ruled courageously and justly, but^he had no personal enemies 



ALWAYS WITH AUSTRIA-HUNGARY 83 

either within or without his dominions, for he had always been 
an upholder of a policy of peace." 

The Narodni Prava of November 23rd wrote : 
" Bulgaria, who has always had close relations with Austria- 
Hungary, is perfectly cognizant of the noble and humane part 
taken by the late Emperor in the defence of Bulgarian interests." 

Lastly, a passage from the Order of the Day from King 
Ferdinand to the army : 

" His great acts will remain bound up inseparably with our 
modern national history, whilst his brilliant memory will be 
sacred and unforgettable among the Bulgarian people, for 
Francis- Joseph was a close friend and a jealous defender of our 
country's interests." 

The conclusions to be drawn from all this are obvious. 
All the Bulgarian journals cry up the merits of Francis- 
Joseph. The organs of Radoslavoff extol the wisdom of 
the monarch who comprehended the community of Austro- 
Hungarian and Bulgarian interests in the Balkans, and the 
necessity of creating a Great Bulgaria. All Bulgarian 
opinion looks upon the Erostratos of the European con- 
flagration as the greatest, the most devoted apostle of peace. 
The organ of M. Gueshoff eulogises the monarchy of expul- 
sions, high treason trials, and hangings, as an ideal con- 
federation of peoples enjoying equal rights and supreme 
well-being, without distinction of religion or race. 

The sacred egoism of the Bulgars does not hesitate in 
this as in other things to carry the distortion of facts to 
an amazing pitch of impudence. 



CHAPTER VII 

BULGARS AND HUNGARIANS 

Bulgaro-Hungarian friendship holds a place apart in 
the alliance of Bulgaria with Austro-Hungary. Between 
Bulgars and Hungarians there is affinity of race, and, 
above all, of character. The Bulgars have a better under- 
standing of Hungary, feudal, rustic, primitive and coarse 
in manners. More varied in its mixture of nationalities, 
more complicated in organisation, more developed also, 
bourgeois and industrial, Austria in its character is further 
away from Bulgaria than by its frontiers. But it is not in 
these affinities that we must seek the causes of the drawing 
together specially manifested between Bulgars and 
Hungarians. 

This sympathy is to be explained rather by interested 
motives. From the beginning of the war the Bulgars 
understood the influential part played by the Hungarians 
in the dual monarchy. Moreover, both felt instinctively 
the need of holding together, in the rush of the great Ger- 
manic current, and endeavoured by a more intimate rela- 
tion to safeguard, in the heart of the alliance which binds 
them to the Germans, their own particular interests. It 
was a measure of precaution taken 'tardily, but jealously 
adhered to both at Buda-Pesth and Sofia. 

The Neue Freie Presse (October 31st, 1915) contains a 
telegraphic report of the speech of Count Apponyi at Buda- 
Pesth at the inauguration of a section of the Red Cross 
for Bulgaria. The meeting was presided over by Count 
Stephen Tisza, President of the Council. Apponyi said : 

" We see opening before us a vast prospect in becoming the 
neighbours of States for whom the possibility of having interests 
conflicting with ours is absolutely excluded. On the contrary, 
we feel bound to those States by common conditions of existence. 
It is plain that the Bulgarian nation is menaced by the same dangers 
as ourselves ; the security of Bulgarian national development 

84 



BULGARS AND HUNGARIANS 85 

depends on the same conditions as ours. Our alliance, therefore, 
springs naturally from mind and heart." 

The Narodni Prava of December 6th, 1915, published 
the text of the despatches exchanged between the President 
of the Sobranie and the President of the Hungarian Parlia- 
ment and the Chamber of Magnates on the occasion of the 
opening of the sessions of those two assemblies. The 
President of the Bulgarian Sobranie, Dr. K. Vatcheff, 
declared : 

" After mature reflection, our people has taken its place 
by the side of the Hungarian nation in the desperate struggle 
for the victory of justice and the liberty of peoples. The senti- 
ments of the Hungarian people for us are the same as ours for 
the Hungarians. These sentiments, and, above all, the common 
interests of the two nations, evidently constitute the principal 
reasons which have decided Bulgaria to become a humble ally of 
the Great Central Powers in the European war against calumnia- 
tors and brawlers, and against their instigators and defenders." 

The Narodni Prava of December 6th has a leader on 
this exchange of despatches : 

"In a quite recent past Hungary has had to defend itself 
constantly against all imaginable plots and crimes which the 
neighbouring State, although often overwhelmed with Hungarian 
benefits, committed unceasingly. Bulgaria also, in the recent 
past, has had to bear with the treachery and baseness of a 
neighbouring State. This perfidious and criminal neighbour 
of Hungary and Bulgaria was Serbia. . . . We Bulgarians are 
happy to have been able, whilst defending our own interests, to 
help the Hungarian nation to get rid of its quarrelsome neighbour. 
Now they have become next-door neighbours, Hungary and 
Bulgaria will create a wide gateway through which the two 
peoples will be able to pass into a new era of peace, prosperity, 
and unfettered progress." 

The declaration of the President of the Sobranie, in 
which he explains the adhesion of Bulgaria to the Central 
Powers, chiefly by the affection of the Bulgar for the Hun- 
garians, has been often quoted. It is termed " historic " 
by the Hungarian press. The Sobranie inaugurated its 
ordinary session on October 29th, 1916, by acclaiming a 
new Bulgaro-Hungarian fraternity. 

The Pester Lloyd of January 1st, 1916, was informed 
that the President of the Sobranie, at the beginning of the 
session, saluted the Hungarian Parliament by a despatch 
which contained, among others, these words : 

" The two nations have become friends, and after having 



86 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

been separated by a treacherous and malignant neighbour, 
they are now tracing in fire and blood a common frontier, to unite 
in perpetuity their identical interests ; it is a pledge of the 
brightest future for the two peoples." 

The Frankfurter Zeitung (January 29th, 1916) received 
from Buda-Pesth the following : 

" According to a despatch from Sofia, the Bulgarian Sobranie 
will send a delegation in a few days, charged with discussing 
directly with the Hungarians, questions interesting the two 
States, which have arisen on account of their new contiguity." 

The Magyarorszag (April 10th, 1916) had the following : 
" Radoslavoff declared to an editor of the Magyarorszag 
who paid him a visit in company with the Hungarian com- 
poser Hubay, that he likes the Hungarians very much, and that 
in his affection for them he is surpassed only by the Tsar (of 
Bulgaria), who openly manifests his Hungarian sympathies. . . . 
The Tsar never misses an opportunity of speaking Hungarian." 

Andrassy wrote in the Revue de Hongrie (February 15th, 
1917) : 

" The common danger has brought us together from the 
time when Bulgaria was made a principality until now. It 
may be asserted that the sentiment of community of interests has 
always existed since the Berlin Congress, and has always mani- 
fested itself, at least in a certain measure, both in the policy of 
Austria-Hungary and in that of Bulgaria. At the commence- 
ment of the general war, Bulgaria observed perfect neutrality, 
and when- the Balkan question had to be settled, she took our 
side with all her might. The moment was admirably chosen. 
Like the clever politician he is, King Ferdinand came into the 
arena when he could gain the greatest success with the least 
risk." 

The Kambana of December 21st goes into ecstasies over 
the reciprocal sympathy of Bulgars and Hungarians : 

" We are deeply indebted to Hungarian diplomacy. Now 
that we are their allies, the s}7mpathies they have for us exceeds 
all imagination. They dote on everything that is Bulgarian. 
The Hungarians and ourselves have the same interests in south- 
eastern Europe ; * in the future we shall play a tremendous 
part in the politics of the Near East." 

* Megalomania and display have always dazzled the primitive 
mentality of the pushful adventurers at Buda-Pesth as at Sofia. The 
Alkotmany of February 5th, 19 17, describes the enthusiasm of the King 
of Bulgaria, Ferdinand, who was delighted with " the pomp and rich- 
ness " of the Hungarian coronation. He declared he had seen four 
coronations : two English, those of Edward VII. and George V., and 
two Russian ones, those of Alexander III. and Nicholas II. None of 
them equalled that of Charles IV. in gorgeous pageantry. 



BULGARS AND HUNGARIANS 87 

\ 
It was during the stay of the Bulgarian deputies at 
Buda-Pesth that Bulgaro-Hungarian brotherhood was 
marked by the most enthusiastic manifestations. 

The former Bulgarian Consul at Buda-Pesth, Pantche 
Doreff, wrote on the occasion in the Narodni Prava of 
April 27th, 1916 : 

" Not a people in the world esteems us and wishes us so well 
as the Hungarian nation. The Hungarians alone have a dis- 
interested esteem for us. They are our only sincere friends." 

According to Doreff, Hungarian sympathy for the 
Bulgars can be explained by three different causes : 

" First, their history, which teaches them that we Bulgars 
are their brothers in blood. . . . 

" The personality of our King next. The good impression 
he left in Hungary when he was lieutenant in a Hungarian 
Hussar regiment, is a legend passing from mouth to mouth. 
Besides this, one of the great-grandfathers of his Majesty 
espoused the daughter of a most eminent Hungarian noble." 

The third reason alleged by Doreff is " the esteem which 
the Bulgarian gardeners acquired in Hungary.* 

" In fine/' continues Doreff, " everything attaches us to 
the Hungarians. Leaving on one side the geographical position 
of the two States, our sympathy with the Magyars cannot but 
increase in consequence of our future boundaries, the direct 
character of our relations, the great fluvial way of the Danube, 
and the identity of our political and commercial interests. 
History does not show another instance of such a friendship and 
such a community of multiple interests." 

In its leader of April 30th, 1916, the Pesti Hirlap greets 
the Bulgarian deputies : 

" The blood brotherhood which unites kindred for centuries 
is an immemorial custom of the Turanian race. Such an alliance 
of blood has been sealed by us and the Bulgars in the present 
war. Our brothers have concluded this pact by impregnating 
the mountains of Serbia with their blood. . . . For the Bulgarian 
deputies, Buda-Pesth is not only the first station on their route, 
it also holds the first place in their hearts. We have not forgotten 

* We may form an idea of the hollow basis supporting the assertions 
concerning the former relations between Hungarians and Bulgars, if we 
consider the insistence, in the solemn speeches during the visit of the 
Bulgarian deputies, on the importance of a few thousand Bulgarian 
immigrants who established themselves as gardeners, here and there, in 
the environs of Hungarian towns. They are thinking of organising 
henceforward the Bulgarian colony, small though it is. The Mir of 
October 9th, 19 16, referred to projects of the Bulgarian element in the 
Hungarian capital for building at Buda-Pesth a church, a Bulgarian 
school, etc. 



88 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

that declaration, of historic import, in which the President 
of the Sobranie said that confidence in and sympathy with the 
Hungarian people, above all else, drew the Bulgarian people to 
the side of the powers of Central Europe. . . . 

" The second link, as strong also (the first consists in the 
kinship of the Bulgaro-Hungarian race), between the two 
nations is the Bulgarian Tsar, Ferdinand, whom all Hungarians 
adore to distraction, because he has been an officer of Hungarian 
Hussars, is a Hungarian landowner, and speaks the noble Hun- 
garian tongue. We may be as proud of the Emperor Ferdinand 
as the Bulgarians themselves." 

And the Alkotmany wrote in its leader of May 2nd, 
1916 : 

" Our relations date from the most remote times. Knitted 
as they were on the soil of the ancient common country in Asia, 
and maintained at the conquest of our present fatherland, 
these bonds were drawn tighter in the days of Arpad, when 
the Hungarian d}masty intermarried with the Assenids of 
Bulgaria. 

"... We have always considered the Bulgars as specially 
indicated to be the fillers of the Balkans. . . . Bulgaria has become 
our neighbour, and we shall be able, together, to render secure our 
historic mission, which is to rule the Orient. We are not ignorant 
of the fact that Bulgarian politicians and statesmen are fully 
conscious of this. Have not several of them declared that 
the principal reason for their adhesion to the Central Powers was 
precisely that by so doing they were able to become neighbours of 
Hungary, and that, thanks to this contiguity, they could utilise 
the mighty ancestral energy which the two peoples have pre- 
served in their minds and in their veins?" 

The Pesti Naplo of May 2nd is delighted that the 
Bulgarian deput}^ Kosta Kaltcheff, replied in Hungarian, 
and concludes from it that : 

" In virtue of the superiority of their culture, the Hungarians 
are called to be the natural guides of the Yugoslav peoples and the 
Turanians of the Balkans." 

In speeches of welcome and in toasts, the Bulgars and 
Hungarians constantly speak not only of alliance and 
friendship but of brotherhood. Momtchiloff and Kosta 
Gheorgieff thank " the brother people of Hungary." Count 
Apponyi talks of " fraternal love." Kosta Kaltcheff extols 
the Bulgaro-Hungarian community which will rear anew 
the ancient pillar of the Orient. It was Count Tisza who 
welcomed the Bulgarian guests at the banquet given on 
May 1st by the Hungarian Government, He assures the 



BULGARS AND HUNGARIANS 89 

Bulgars that they " have come among old and sincere 
friends. The entrance of Bulgaria into the alliance of the 
Central Powers is a logical consequence of natural evolution, 
and this evolution is governed by the Bulgarian character 
as well as the role of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans. That 
policy was inaugurated precisely by Hungarian statesmen. . . . 
Eight years after the Berlin Congress, Bulgaria succeeded 
in freeing herself from the Russian yoke." (Az Ujsag, 
May 2nd, 1916.) 

The Bulgarian press described with great enthusiasm 
the reception of the Bulgars at Buda-Pesth. The Dnevnik 
(May 3rd, 1916) declared : 

" The past brought us near each other, and the present 
makes us brothers ; as for the future, we shall build it together, 
on the impregnable foundations of fraternal blood. None can 
then separate us any more." 

The Outro asserts that all Bulgaria is proud of Hun- 
garian friendship. The Balkanska Pochta states that the 
speech of Count Tisza has aroused indescribable enthusiasm 
at Sofia. 

" Every word uttered by Count Tisza is an historical truth 
which takes hold of the heart and understanding of every 
Bulgar. The alliance of Hungary and Bulgaria is hewn in 
granite. The speech of Count Tisza has been publicly read in 
several places at Sofia, and hailed by loud acclamations." 

The Hungarian Ethnographic Society of Buda-Pesth 
elected as honorary members the Bulgarian ethnologists, 
Professors Ichiroff and Arnaoudoff (Saraievsk List, May 
10th, 1916). Thus was rewarded the opportune science 
which deformed and falsified ethnography in favour 
of a common Bulgaro-Hungarian frontier, denying to mil- 
lions of men of another nation the name by which they had 
called themselves for centuries. For that matter, Bulgarian 
science has been constantly subservient to the aims of the 
hour of Bulgarian policy. 

The former Bulgarian Minister of Justice, K. Panaiotoff, 
in a conversation with Dr. Rustem Vambery, deputy pro- 
fessor at the University, spoke of the similarity of juridical 
principles between Bulgaria and the Central Powers : 

" Above all, importance must be attached to the concordance 
with ancient Hungarian law, which is certainly based on the 
same Turanian origin. Doubtless Slav reminiscences exist, but 
it is now thai we ought to apply ourselves to the work of assimilating 
the qualities of the Bidgarian and Hungarian peoples. . . . We 



90 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

hope that, from the point of view of civilisation, also our common 
origin with the Hungarians in the bosom of the Turanian tribe 
(whence the two peoples took the same road to their present 
countries) will be made manifest, thanks to intelligent colla- 
boration." (Pester Lloyd, May 2nd, 1916.)* 

The difficulties and the small profit accruing from the 
study of the two languages, as well as the exiguity of the 
need for them, have made impossible a Hungarian propa- 
ganda in Bulgaria on a scale so vast as that which Germany 
has succeeded in organising ; this, however, has not 
hindered tplatonic manifestations on both sides. Courses 
of language have been founded in commercial schools in 
both countries, and the Hungarians accept a certain 
number of Bulgars as scholars in the technical and com- 
mercial schools of southern Hungary. Museums of com- 
merce are being established, and the Hungarians are study- 
ing Bulgaria, and indeed the whole of the Balkans very 
seriously. They foresee in it a field for economic expan- 
sion, forgetting that Hungary itself is only a field of foreign 
expansion, and that they have proved themselves incapable 
of prospering to any extent, there, where they had all 
sorts of opportunities and privileges. 

* * 

* 

The Magyarorszag, w 7 hich represents the Hungarian 
opposition, has insisted more than the rest on the special 
reasons closely uniting the Hungarians and Bulgars within 
the alliance of the Central Powers. According to the 
organ of Count Karolyi, this intimate friendship will be a 
guarantee for the particular interests which must be pro- 
tected, besides the genuine interests of the alliance. 

The members of the Committee of the Bulgarian Red 
Cross organised on May 23rd, in the palace of the Chamber 
of Magnates of Hungary, a ceremony in honour of Count 
Albert Apponyi, leader of the party of Kossuth, and Presi- 
dent of the Committee of Succour to the Bulgarian Red 

* Az Ujsag of January 14th, 1917, announces the arrival at Buda- 
Pesth of the Bulgarian Commission charged with preparing projects of 
law most urgently needed after the war : " The Bulgarian delegates 
assert that they wish to draw inspiration from Hungarian law for the 
legislation of their country. After the war the administrative system 
of Great Bulgaria will be transformed. Competent circles in Bulgaria 
know that economic, commercial, and industrial life in Hungary and 
Bulgaria will be closely related ; this union could not be c&mplete with- 
out perfect juridical reciprocity between the two countries." 



BULGARS AND HUNGARIANS 91 

Cross. Apponyi, on this occasion, uttered the following 
words : 

"The similarity of the historic trials through which the 
Hungarians have passed like the Bulgars, although our migra- 
tions took place 200 years before those of the Bulgars, the 
same desire to ally ourselves with a great people, more powerful 
than ourselves, without, however, sacrificing our national 
individuality, must bring near to each other the two nations, 
Hungarian and Bulgar, and serve them as security that they 
will not be lost, but, on the contrary, will distinguish themselves, 
in the midst of the alliance which inspires some, perhaps, with 
apprehension and a certain reserve. We guarantee this for 
them." 

In the issue of September 24th, 1916, the Magyarorszag 
says : 

" King Ferdinand knows the Magyar people well, and 
Radoslavoff is perfectly aware of the reliance he can place on 
the tendencies of the Hungarian nation. . . . It was the Hun- 
garian nation of which Bulgaria had need in the first place, whilst 
the armed alliance with the Central Empires has been of secondary 
import to her. '. . . The director of the Bulgarian Statistical 
Bureau, Dr. Kiril PopojEf, has demonstrated the thesis to us 
that all well-weighed Bulgarian interests place her before all at 
the side of Hungary, and not at that of the Central Powers. 
Bulgaria and Hungary, geographically neighbours also, must 
unite for the protection of their common interests. Bulgaria, 
unitsd to Hungary, and in armed alliance with the Central 
Powsrs, is sure of two things : indisputable victory, and the 
brotiierly attitude of Hungary to her interests. The raUying 
to m of the Bulgars is not a diplomatic move : it is the result 
of a fortunate coincidence of ottr histories, of our common origin, 
and of the identity of our national soul, brought into relief by 
the intelligent and perspicacious foresight of Bulgarian politi- 
cians. That is what has cemented Bulgaro-Magyar fraternity." 

Tlie special reasons of reserve and precaution against 
the abusive predominance of the Germans on which Count 
Karo.yi's organ insists as the chief basis of race friendship 
between Bulgars and Hungarians, might be regarded as 
negative. There are others more positive, however. The 
Magyarorszag itself, whilst treating the question in a purely 
platonic sense, infers a certain measure of reproach to the 
Government for being too servile towards Vienna and 
Berlin. 

But whence would come the peril of neglecting special 
Bulgarian and Hungarian interests, insomuch that it was 
deemed necessary to protect them, within the alliance, 



&2 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

by a particular solidarity between Hungary and Bulgaria ? 

Evidently, and above all as concerns questions affect- 
ing Hungarians and Bulgarians equally and especially, it 
comes from Roumania and Serbia or Yugo-slavia. It is 
of these questions that Tisza, Karolyi, and Radoslavoff 
are thinking, when they talk of the basis of particular 
Bulgaro-Hungarian amity. So it is that facts relating to 
Serbia and Roumania have occasioned the most remark- 
able demonstrations. 

The Zeit of September 13th, 1916, contained the follow- 
ing : 

" On the occasion of the taking of Tutrakan and the Dobrudja 
victory, the President of the Hungarian Council, Tisza, con- 
gratulated the President of the Bulgarian Council, Radoslavoff, 
who replied : ' The sympathy of Hungary for the Bulgarian 
cause always fostered the hope that a durable union would be 
brought about, and, indeed, this union was sealed last year 
by the bloodshed in common on the field of battle. With the 
aid of God, the Ungaro-Bulgarian effort will be crowned with 
success, and our base enemies, those near and those afar, Will 
not escape Ungaro-Bulgarian revenge.' " 

In a long interview, published in the Pester Lloyd 
(September 15th, 1916), Radoslavoff expressed Bulgarian 
sympathies with the Hungarians. The same day the 
same manifestations were repeated in an interview of the 
Minister of Finance, Tontcheff (published in the Az Est]. 

The Roumanian intervention provoked in the Hun- 
garian Parliament a series of declarations on Ungaro- 
Bulgarian friendship. It was Count Tisza who insisted 
(September 13th, 1916) on the value of the Ungaro-Bulgarian 
alliance in the struggle against Roumania. Count Karolyi, 
at the sitting of September 14th, 1916, regretted that the 
opposition were not informed of the conditions of the 
understanding with Bulgaria. He feared that the delay 
in Bulgarian intervention was the result of a special under- 
standing on the Balkan question, the Yugo-slav question, 
and particularly on the question as to the fate of Serbia. 
At the sitting of September 21st Count Andrassy, speaking 
on the same subject, emphasised the services rendered 
by his father to Bulgaro-Hungarian amity : 

" Later, on divers occasions, the community of feeling 
between the two nations displayed itself, and when Serbia 
became our common enemy the alliance was inevitable." 

Even at the most critical moment of the Roumanian 



BULGARS AND HUNGARIANS 93 

invasion of Transylvania, the partisans of the Ungaro- 
Bulgarian alliance did not forget to insist on its funda- 
mental aim : the struggle against Serbia and the Yugoslav 
world. 

On this question, opinion at Buda-Pesth and Sofia 
are at one, the same tendencies are exhibited, and the 
same difficulties in solving the problem present themselves. 

The destruction of Serbia and Serbism is desired on 
both sides, and, at the same time, both fear the conse- 
quences of a mere partition of Serbia, which would only 
complicate the Yugo-slav problem in the Austro-Hungarian 
monarchy by the annexation of two and a half million 
Serbs. The Hungarians cannot bring themselves to accept 
the trialism which would be created at the expense of their 
present predominance in the monarchy and their claim 
to extend their public rights over the Yugo-slav provinces. 
The Bulgars also dread a strong Yugo-slavia which would 
form a buffer between Hungary and Austria, and would 
be an outpost of Austria in Balkan politics. For this 
reason the Serbian and Yugo-slav problem gives rise to 
the most fantastic schemes. In the opinion of the majority 
an amputated Serbia should be re-established which would 
be joined to Montenegro (from which certain points, such 
as Lovtchen and the coast, would be detached), and which 
would be condemned to vegetate, incapable of prospering 
and developing itself. 

Other and more original combinations are put forward. 
One may be cited which has been noticed in the Gazette de 
Lausanne (December 6th, 1916), under the title, " The 
Balkans of To-morrow : Yugo-slavia or Great Bulgaria ? " — 

" According to certain information, it is affirmed from a 
trustworthy source, the taking of Bucharest by the German 
and Bulgarian armies, etc., will be celebrated by a political 
manifestation of the greatest importance. 

" M. Radoslavoff, Prime Minister of Bulgaria, will announce 
the constitution of a Yugo-slavia, including the Croats, Dalma- 
tians, Bosnians, Albanians, Serbs, and Montenegrins, and the 
creation of a Great Bulgaria exercising political control over the 
new Yugoslavia, in agreement with the Central Powers. Great 
Bulgaria would receive Wallachia and a part of Serbia as far 
as Semendria on the Danube, as well as Macedonia. The rest 
of Serbia would be absorbed in Yugo-slavia, dominated mili- 
tarily by Bidgaria, and administered conjointly by Hungary 
and Bulgaria. This will be the counterpart of autonomous 
Poland." 



94 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Gazette de Lausanne adds : 

" Although this information has been furnished by one 
whose kno"\vledge up to the present has generally been con- 
firmed by events, we publish this only under extreme reserva- 
tion. The .condominium to be exercised over the future Yugo- 
slavia bears too great a resemblance to the administration of 
the Duchies by Austria and Prussia after the war of 1864, and 
that experiment is still too recent to warrant the probability 
of an arrangement which, from the morrow of its conclusion, 
would be a source of the gravest conflicts." 

The scheme is fantastic, impracticable, and not worth 
discussing. This monstrous Yugoslavia, which would be 
placed under a condominium of Hungarians and Bulgars, 
is valuable only as delineating the precise nature of the 
interest taken by Bulgars and Hungarians in Yugo-slavia. 
The participation of Bulgars and Hungarians in the crime 
against Yugo-slavia is doubtless the most important motive 
in Bulgaro-Hungarian friendship. 



CHAPTER VIII 

BULGARS AND GERMANS 

The friend of Austria-Hungary, Bulgaria, shared both her 
good and ill fortune ; like the Danubian monarchy, Bulgaria 
had to become the slave of Germany. She was not ignorant 
of the part taken by Germany in Austrian-Balkan policy, 
the co-ordinated efforts of Germany and her " brilliant 
second " in the East, nor the fact that the word of command 
for that policy came from the capital of the two Germanies, 
Berlin. 

But this is not the only explanation of the fanatical 
attachment of the Bulgars to the Germans in the great 
war. The Bulgars had long ago taken to themselves the 
surname " Prussians of the Balkans." Admiring the 
technical progress, the material culture, the automatic 
organisation of Germany, the Bulgars discerned their 
source only in the fierce energy which they thought to rival 
by the elementary and brutal power of a new and primitive 
race. 

This respect for brute force only is explained also by 
the atavism of centuries of servitude. But an ethnic 
trait must be added to it, another atavism, that of the 
Slavo-tartar race. 

The grandiose plan of Germany, put into execution 
through the great war, must have turned the head of Bul- 
garian megalomania. The new situation created by the 
war, the German hold on Austria-Hungary, decided Bulgaria 
to attach herself completely and blindly to the all-might 
of the Kaiser, the dispenser of all favours in the present 
and all hopes for the future. 

Always clinging to the stronger, Bulgaria, in her rela- 
tions with Austria-Hungary, showed her predilection for 
Hungary ; in the alliance with the Central Empires she 
accorded her preference to Germany. It must be said, 
also, that the breaking up of the Austrian forces in the 

95 



96 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Carpathians and Serbia, and the passing of the initiative 
in the Balkans into the hands of Germany exclusively, 
facilitated direct relations between Bulgaria and Germany. 
Compliments between Vienna and Sofia continued to be 
exchanged, Bulgaro-Hungarian fraternity continued to be 
manifested, but business was concluded only between Berlin 
and Sofia. During the whole of last year (1916) contact 
between Bulgaria and Germany was direct and constant. 
After the development of the action on the Macedonian 
front and Roumanian intervention, there ensued complete 
union. Bulgaria and Turkey entered into the dominion 
of the German empire. Troubled though it was, the dream 
of German domination from Hamburg to Bagdad existed, 
nevertheless, for a certain time. Germany will be able to 
say that she reigned once from the North Sea to the banks 
of the Euphrates. 

Bulgaro-German friendship did not want for occasions 
to display itself. Appeals for funds constantly addressed 
to Berlin from Bulgaria, the German economic capture of 
Sofia, excursions, propagandas of all sorts kept up continu- 
ous declarations of mutual admiration and solidarity, 
and proclaimed the great utility of the alliance for the two 
nations, for Europe, and even for humanity. The interview 
of the Kaiser and Coburg at Nish, the visit of King Ferdinand 
to the German general headquarters, the pilgrimage of 
Bulgarian deputies to Berlin, Dresden, and Munich, the 
excursion of German parliamentarians to Sofia, provoked 
more and more enthusiastic demonstrations of amity. 

From the time when Germany began to apply the 
principle of unity of action and command to Bulgaria, 
German visits to Sofia were incessant. Taking over succes- 
sively the railways, posts and telegraphs, military transport, 
and medical corps, or submitting them to their control, 
the Germans by these ceremonious visits strengthened 
their " peaceful penetration." 

The signature of the final formalities in the Germano- 
Bulgarian treaty, at the beginning of September, 1915, was 
assigned to two delegates, Duke Johann-Albrecht of 
Mecklenburg, and the Chief of the Department of Eastern 
Affairs, Rosenberg. During the operations against Serbia, 
King Ferdinand met the Duke of Mecklenburg at Bela- 
Palanka (November 15th, 1915). The Frankfurter Zeitung 
of January 3rd, 1916, reproduced the comments of the 
Bulgarian press on the visit of Mackensen to Sofia. The 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 97 

Narodni Prava published an article full of enthusiasm on 
the German military chief, calling him " the symbol of 
German power, discipline, and energy," and hailing cordially 
the fraternity in arms of Bulgars and Germans. The Echo 
de Bulgarie wrote : 

" The Germano-Bulgarian alliance has turned out brilliantly. 
The Balkan war is finished : it only remains to drive General 
Sarrail's army from Salonica. This task will demand new 
sacrifices, but the supreme genius for command of General 
Mackensen, and the proved valour of the allied troops, are sure 
guarantees of victory." 

Tours of inspection of German staff officers, financiers, 
chiefs of sanitary service, were incessant both at Sofia 
and along all the Balkan front. 

The Kaiser even sent one of his sons to the Macedonian 
front. 

The journey of the Kaiser's third son called from the 
Oatro (April 19th, 191 6) the following : 

" In remarking the friendly relations between German and 
Bulgarian soldiers at the front, Prince August Wilhelm was 
delighted, and expressed his conviction that nowhere in the 
Balkans could there be found better allies, better suited to each 
other." 

The interview of Wilhelm II. and King Ferdinand in 
January, 1916, took place amid the dazzling scenic effects 
with which neither of these crowned comedians ever fails 
to surround his acts. The German and Bulgarian illustrated 
papers published a series of photographs and sketches of 
the Kaiser and Coburg in triumphant attitudes. Behind 
them always appeared the profile of Mackensen, and at the 
foot of the picture Bulgarian and German soldiers embracing 
each other, radiant with enthusiasm, celebrating the 
" historic fete." 

On January 18th, 1916, the Kaiser arrived at Nish, 
accompanied by his Chief of the Staff, General Falkenhayn. 
He was received by King Ferdinand, the Crown Prince 
Boris, Prince Cyril, M. Radoslavoff, the Bulgarian General- 
issimo Jekoff, the Chief of the General Staff, Jostoff. The 
Emperor, the King, and the Crown Prince left in a motor 
for the fortress, where they were joined by Field-Marshal 
Mackensen. After the review the Emperor presented 
Ferdinand with the baton of Field-Marshal of the German 
Army. At eight o'clock the Emperor joined his train. 
Dinner was served at Stalatch station. The King, the 



98 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Princes, M. Radoslavoff and the other personages who had 
accompanied the Emperor thus far, returned to Nish. 

The Echo de Bulgarie (January 21st, 1916), from which 
we have borrowed the above account, said in its leader : 

" The most powerful monarch in Europe has thought fit to 
manifest his friendship for Bulgaria, her sovereign, army, and 
people, in the very city where for long months plots were woven 
against the destiny of the Bulgarian race and the security of 
Bulgaria." 

Here is an extract from the toast which the King of 
Bulgaria gave (in German) at the luncheon at Nish : 

" Sire, this day is one of high historic significance. Two 
hundred and fifteen years ago to-day Your Majesty's great 
ancestor, Frederick I., put on with his own powerful hands 
the royal crown of Prussia. On January 18th, 1871, under the 
reign of Your Majesty's grandfather, was created the new 
German empire : William the Great restored at Versailles the 
dignity of the German Emperors. To-day, January 18th, 1916, 
his glorious grandson, having with his mighty word swept 
away all obstacles, traverses the north-west portion of the Balkan 
peninsula inhabited formerly by Serbs, and treads triumphantly 
the Roman fortress of Nissa. Ave Imperator, Caesar et Rex, 
Victor et gloriose, ex Naissa antiqua omnes Orientis populi 
te salutant redemptorem ferentem oppressis prosperitatem 
atque salutem ! Vivas !" 

The Emperor William replied : 

" To give an outward expression of the feelings to which 
these fetes have given birth in me and in all Germany, I 
have begged your Majesty to accept the rank of Field- Marshal 
of the Prussian Army, and I am happy, with my army, that in 
accepting that dignity you have become one of us in this particular 
sense also." 

The Echo de Bulgarie (January 22nd) dedicates a leader 
to the two toasts, in which it says : 

" Nish, the ancient Roman fortress, of which the Serbs 
had made a stronghold of perfidy and falsehood, has been 
endowed, by the meeting of the allied monarchs, with the fame 
of an historic city, whose name will be associated with a decisive 
stage in the general conflagration." 

In its issue of the following day, the Echo de Bulgarie 
extols the worth of " the first Bulgarian Field-Marshal." 

"^The sovereigns of the oldest and most glorious armies 
in the world, the Emperor Francis- Joseph and the Emperor 
William, appreciating the merits of our King for the brilliant 
preparation of our army and crushing victories of the Balkan 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 99 

campaign, have named him successively Austrian Field-Marshal 
and Prussian Field-Marshal. In the national history, Tsar 
Ferdinand, the Tsar liberator and the unifier of Bulgarian 
territory, will be the first Field-Marshal. This dignity was 
made for him, and so great are the services it honours, that if 
it had not existed it would have had to be invented. The 
Bulgarian army, fighting side by side with the troops of the two 
great powers, has entered with a stride the arena of the world 
struggle. It has become an international factor." 

It translates the manifestations of the Austro-German 
press, notably an article in the Vossische Zeitung which says : 

" As yet the Sovereign of no great power has entered 
Bulgaria since she became an independent State. To-day 
the Kaiser has gone to shake hands with the victor. What 
Bulgaria has accomplished in forty years is without example in 
history. The territories occupied by the Bulgars are for ever 
incorporated in the kingdom of Bulgaria." 

We must quote also, after the Echo de Bulgarie (January 
25th), what other Bulgarian journals said on the same 
occasion. 

Narodni Prava : 

" The honour done by the German Emperor to the King 
of the Bulgars by his visit to Nish consecrates the new era of 
dignity and complete independence of the Kingdom of Bulgaria. 
The Emperor of the iron will, who incarnates the universal 
genius of mighty Germany, has been the guest of Bulgaria 
in Bulgarian Nish. This circumstance has overwhelmed with 
joy the Bulgarian people and their sovereign." 

The Preporetz (Democratic opposition) : 

" The Emperor of United Germany has been the guest of 
H.M. the King of the Bulgars, who has been called by the force 
of circumstances to solve a great problem, that of filling, in 
the interests of European peace and the welfare of nations, 
the gap created by the retreat of the Turks from the Danube 
to the Odrin-Enos line. What had been forgotten by the Tsar 
of Russia, what the Ministers of the Serbian Government had 
betrayed, was recalled with energy, the other day, at Nish, 
by the Emperor William. The very particular attention paid 
by the Kaiser to the Macedonian detachment which took part 
in the review was not dictated merely by considerations of 
courtesy. It was due to the innate feeling of respect of every 
great man for great achievements." 

From the Voenni Izvestia : 

" At Nish the Bulgarian troops admired the energetic 
and powerful figure of the supreme chief of Germany, whose 



100 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

genius now marks the beginning of a new era in the history of 
nations." 

Three weeks later the same manifestations were repeated 
on the occasion of the visit of Coburg to the German head- 
quarters. The Echo de Bulgarie (February ioth, 1916) 
wrote : 

" It was on the soil of vanished Serbia, but in a Bulgarian 
city which is at the same time the key of Macedonia, that these 
reciprocal sentiments found their solemn expression for the 
first time ; it is at the seat of the two allied high commands 
that they will be renewed and confirmed." 

The most essential thing that the Bulgars emphasise 
in the Kaiser's toast is the question of gain. The Echo 
de Bulgarie (February 12th) says : 

" The Emperor William has expressed his wishes that the 
Bulgars, under the wise and perspicacious leadership of their 
sovereign, should preserve and improve what they have so painfully 
and gloriously won."* 

The Bulgarian and German press reiterate the same 
order of ideas. The Echo de Bulgarie (February 13th, 1916) 
reproduces the following extracts from other newspapers. 

Narodni Prava : 

" In confirming the perfect harmony between the allies, 
the conferences which will take place at headquarters will 
be a new and imposing manifestation of the sincere friendship 
which unites the allied nations. The Bulgarian people has 
resorted to arms to break the fetters of slavery in Macedonia 
and to suppress a stirrer up of unceasing troubles in the Balkans." 

Preporetz (Democratic) : 

" In his toast, the Emperor William repeats and emphasises 
in a solemn manner the words he uttered at the historic inter- 
view at Nish : Everything that Bulgaria has gained by arms 
belongs to her. If the evolution of events imposes new sacrifices 
on us, our people will make them. We have always main- 
tained that we cannot stop halfway. The great work of national 
unity must be achieved. We are sure that the decisions taken 
at the German headquarters will fully guarantee our national 
acquisitions. 

Kambana (article by the deputy Dascaloff) : 
" It was to our interest, then, to embrace the cause of the 
Central Empires. Their enemy was also ours." 

*"In^fact, the Kaiser spoke only of " Bulgaria henceforth united," 
but Bulgarian ethnography and practical genius discovered in it what 
it wished for. 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 101 

Deutsche Tageszeitung : 

" The desire of the whole German nation is that Bulgaria 
should be a strong pillar for the development of the Balkans, 
indissolubly linked with the German Empire by common interests, 
military, political, and economic. . . ." 

Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung : 

" All the efforts of our enemies cannot annul the results of 
this campaign. These results are final, and consequently already 
belong to history." 

Lastly, as the highest note in this chorus of admiration 
and enthusiasm, let us quote an article by the Gueshovist 
opposition deputy, Boris Vazoff, which appeared in the 
Mir* : 

" The Bulgarian people is- in close relations with the most 
civilised and most disciplined people in the world, the German 
nation. The consequences of this relationship will be incal- 
culable and beyond all predictions. Imitation will cause us 
to adopt new ideas, many things seen or heard. This event 
will mark the opening of a new era in our evolution, an epoch 
comparable only to moral regeneration and political emancipa- 
tion, for it will embrace all the manifestations of political life, 
and will be of decisive importance." 

* * 
* 

The visit of the Bulgarian deputies to Berlin was pro- 
jected from the month of December, 1915. The Frank- 
furter Zeitung published on December 18th a dispatch from 
Buda-Pesth which stated, "On the initiative of the Vice- 
President of the Bulgarian Sobranie, Dr. Momtchiloff, 
the members of the Sobranie propose to visit Vienna, Buda- 
Pesth and Berlin." 

After much preparation the tour began towards the 
end of August, 1916. 

On the eve of departure, Momtchiloff said to the corre- 
spondent of the Reichspost (April 28th, 1916) : 

" The Bulgarian nation is unanimous in its support of the 
policy of Radoslavoff. . . . Whatever happens, our fate is for 
ever bound up with that of the Central Powers." 

Welcomed with enthusiasm at Buda-Pesth and Vienna, 
and delighted with their reception, the Bulgars continued 
to be so in Germany. On the way to Berlin they stayed 
at Dresden on Saturday, May 16th. At the banquet 
offered to them, the Minister of State, Witztum, insisted 

* Translated in the Echo de Bulgarie (February ioth, 1916). 

H 



102 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

on the fact that the same blood flowed in the veins of the 
sovereigns of Bulgaria and Saxony. At Dresden, Dr. H. 
Gheorgiefr stated to a correspondent of the Leipziger 
Neueste Nachrichten (May 7th, 1916), that " not only the 
Government, but the entire Bulgarian people will support 
the Germans to the last moment. . . . Rarely have the Bulgars 
acted with so much enthusiasm as in concluding the alliance 
with the Germans." 

All the principal Berlin newspapers of May 7th greet 
the Bulgarian deputies very warmly. 

The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung wrote : 
" Bulgaria is at present united with the Central Powers 
and Turkey by the close bonds of armed fraternity." 

The Berliner Tageblatt said : 

" The alliance which has been tested in moments of import- 
ance in world history is not only between the two armies and 
their chiefs, but also between the two peoples. This alliance 
of four nations, which extends from the North Sea to Asia 
Minor, becomes a lasting association. . . . There is no divergence 
of opinion to-day among the Bulgarian people." 

The Lokal Anzeiger declared that : 

" The greetings of Berlin to the Bulgars are the free expres- 
sion of a political sentiment dating from long before the alliance. 
Berlin is the birthplace of the Bulgarian State. The first sovereign 
which free Bulgaria elected was of German blood. . . . The monarch 
who has achieved Bulgarian unity belongs also to a German reign- 
ing family. We hope that the representatives of the people who 
are called, not without reason, the Prussians of the Balkans, will 
feel at home in the chief town of Prussia and the German 
Empire." 

The Vossische Zeitung remarked that the device over 
the portal of the Sobranie, 

" ' L'Union fait la Force,' has been tested three times against 
the express will of Russia. The Bulgars know that what has 
been done in Macedonia and for Macedonia was carried out 
under the supreme German command. The fruits will remain 
with the Bulgars, and not Macedonia only, but northward of 
Macedonia also, a goodly portion of the former Serbian kingdom." 

The Frankfurter Zeitung wrote : 

" Serbia is overthrown. Through Bulgaria, the road leads 
to Constantinople and Asia Minor, uniting East and West." 

The Bulgars reached Berlin on Sunday afternoon, 
May 7th. They were loudly cheered at the railway station. 
Von Radowitz welcomed them in the name of the Minister 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 103 

of Foreign Affairs. At the banquet offered by the Germano- 
Bulgarian Association, Kosnitski (recently named Minister 
of Railways) said that the Bulgarian people felt that the task 
of ruling the Balkans had devolved upon them. He hailed the 
German Emperor as the greatest and most glorious sovereign 
in the world. 

On Monday, May 8th, the deputies were received by 
the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg. He was glad, he said, 
to be able to greet them on what was historic ground for 
Bulgaria. 

" It was here that she was founded in 1878. ... If we 
want to trace the foundations we must go far back in history, 
for already in 864 the illustrious Bulgarian Emperor Boris 
concluded a treaty with King Ludwig of Germania. The 
Emperor of Germany and the Emperor of Bulgaria met at Nish 
ten centuries later to renew the alliance." 

Momtchiloff replied : 

" Bulgaria has chosen her place in the world war. . . . The 
great and mighty personality of the Emperor of Germany, whose 
name alone suffices to make his adversaries tremble, has acquired 
the right to the great administration of the Bulgarian country. At 
the reception at the Reichstag, which took place on the evening 
of the same day, the president, Kaempf, declared : ' The opinions 
and tendencies of the Bulgarian nation are in accord with the 
aims of the German Empire and with the most intimate traits 
of German national character.' " 

Momtchiloff replied : 

" Bulgaria prays to God that the triumph of Germany may 
equal her power." 

During the reception at the Hotel de Ville, on Tuesday, 
May 9th, Gheorgieff declared that the Bulgarians had come 
to Berlin to express solemnly their desire to remain for ever 
the faithful allies of the Germans. 

According to the newspapers, these speeches and replies 
were accompanied by deafening cheers. 

The Munchner Neueste Nachrichten in its leader of 
May 9th gave expression to the same enthusiasm : 

" Every Bulgar, possessing political intelligence, must have 
comprehended that the installation of Russia on the Straits 
would put an end to Bulgarian independence. . . . Bulgaria 
had no choice, if she wished to remain faithful to herself and 
her historic mission. As a great buttress of the old bridge 
which unites Europe and Asia, and which will never be dominated 
by the Muscovites, the veritable successors of Tamerlane, 



104 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Bulgaria has found liberty and safety truly only in the new 
alliance." 

The Bulgars left on May nth for Hamburg. On their 
return, as they passed through Cologne, the Kolnische 
Zeitung saw : 

" In the union of States from Bremen to Bagdad, a ' solid 
block,' the pledge of a sane evolution towards peace, and the 
gravest danger for England, since this block renders possible 
an expansion which may become fatal to the two principal arteries 
of England, India and Egypt. The mission of Bulgaria is to 
be the intermediary between West and East, and the guarantee 
of stability in the Balkans." 

At Frankfurt the Bulgars were the guests of the Munici- 
pality at noon, and of the Frankfurter Zeitung in the evening. 

The Miinchner Neueste Nachrickten of May 18th greets 
the arrival of the Bulgars at Munich with the same enthu- 
siasm. It insists on the "free intercourse of Bulgaria with 
the North Sea, and soon with the Indian Ocean. Bulgaria 
is henceforward indissolubly bound to the economic system 
of Central Europe, and will be a free and powerful member 
of the community of States and peoples who will govern 
this new way of world communications." 

At the banquet offered on May 20th by the Bavarian 
Parliament, the Bulgars were welcomed by the president, 
Orterer, who congratulated them on having chosen a line 
of conduct different from that of other Balkan nations, 
and on having joined Germany and Austria-Hungary at 
a difficult and crucial moment. Gheorgieff replied, " Our 
sentiments and interests are the same." During the recep- 
tion at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in the evening, the 
Councillor of State, Lossl, emphasised the action of Bulgaria 
against Serbia and the opening of free communications 
with Turkey. The next day (May 21st) the deputies were 
received at the Town Hall of Munich. President Borscht 
saluted them with a speech hostile to Serbia ; Dr. Ivan 
Kostoff replied. The function terminated by the sending 
of a telegram vibrating with enthusiasm to Ferdinand. 
(Miinchner Neueste Nachrichten, May 23rd, 1916.) 

Returning by Vienna, Momtchiloff declared in the 
Reichspost of May 23rd, 1916, that the Bulgars were en- 
chanted with their reception in Germany and full of admira- 
tion for their allies. On May 19th the Wolff Agency com- 
municated to the press the statements made by the Bulgarian 
Minister at Berlin, Rizoff, to the editor of the Outro of Sofia. 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 105 

Rizoff said that nobody could doubt that Germany would 
be victorious, that the reception given to the deputies and 
the speeches were a pledge of cordial relations, and con- 
tinued thus in the same order of ideas and exalted tone. 
The Dnevnik of May 9th, 1916, wrote concerning the visit 
of the Bulgarian deputies to Germany : 

" For the first time since we have been free, we have broken 
resolutely with the political prejudice which would transform 
gratitude into a direction of policy. . . . Our alliance with the 
Central Powers and Turkey was a logical consequence of our 
historic past, and therefore nothing factitious or badly calcu- 
lated can be found in it. This alliance does not represent a 
passing coincidence of interests. . . . Our economic develop- 
ment led us naturally to turn towards Central Europe, whose 
influence was increasing slowly but constantly. Austria-Hungary, 
and Germany too, in their advance eastward were bound to 
meet us sooner or later. The normal course of events has led 
us to a mutual understanding." 

* * 

Many things at Buda-Pesth, Vienna, and Berlin must 
have roused the admiration of the Balkan orientals. But 
the Germans must have been still more astonished by the 
success of their tour in Bulgaria, which was transformed — 
as the German deputy Muller said at the Sofia railway 
station — into a '" triumphal progress." The official staging, 
the popular manifestations, the ovations of the young 
people, the paeans of the journalists but-rivalled each other. 

At a preparatory sitting presided over by Radoslavoff, 
a special committee was elected to arrange the details of 
the reception of the German guests. 

The Ouiro of June 21st had the following : . 

" On June 19th, the representatives of all the opposition 
groups in Parliament, with the exception of the Strict Socialists, 
held a meeting under the presidency of the President of the 
Sobranie, Dr. Vatcheff. From the democratic party the former 
Ministers, M. M. Takeff and Al. Mouchanoff, were present ; 
the popular party was represented by M. Iv. Gueshoff ; the 
Moderate Socialists by M. J. Sakazoff ; the Tsankovists by M. 
Daneff, and the Agrarians by the deputy, M. T. Bakaloff. 

" The central direction of the popular party (Gueshovists), 
owing to the fact that the party had not been invited to take 
part in the visit of the Bulgarian deputies to Germany and 
Austria-Hungary, decided on June 20th not to accept the 
invitation to the banquet offered by the Government. It 
deemed it necessary, nevertheless, to concert measures with 



106 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the competent authorities, in order that the deputies of the 
allied German nation should receive the most cordial welcome. 
It was decided at this same sitting that several members of 
the central direction should visit the German deputies and try 
to confer with them on questions relating to the war or to the 
future relations between Bulgaria and the Central States. 

" The Broad Socialists also decided not to go to the banquet, 
but, notwithstanding, to profit by every opportunity to meet the 
German deputies." 

The Outro (June 23rd) announced that : - 

" The secret councils of the opposition regarding the arrival 
of the German deputies at Sofia have terminated. The central 
direction of the radical party has delegated the deputy Dr. 
Fadenhecht to represent the radical democratic group at the 
reception of the Germans and at the banquets. The direction 
of the democratic party has also decided, in principle, to parti- 
cipate in the reception. It is probable that its leader, M. Maknoff , 
will meet the members of the Reichstag to confer on questions 
arising from the war." 

The Preporetz, the organ of the Democrats, wrote on 
this subject : 

" Out of respect for the German Parliament and its repre- 
sentatives who visit our country for the first time, and not 
losing sight of the fact, moreover, that the most elementary 
politeness requires us to show them special attention, not only 
on account of their personal merits, but also because they are 
our allies, the governing committee of the democratic party has 
delegated MM. Malinoff, Takeff, and Lieptcheff to go to the 
station to bid welcome to the German deputies." 

The delegation from the Reichstag was composed of 
the deputies Baron Gamp, Massennen, Dr. von Hayde- 
brand, Ernst Bassermann, Hermann Dietrich, Dr. Nau- 
mann, Prince Drucki-Lubecki, Dr. Ernst Miiller, Dr. 
Wilhelm Mayer, Erzgeber, Dr. Stressemann, Dr. Pfaiffer 
and Professor Hotsch. On its arrival on June 25th at Nish 
it was received by the Government Commissary, Tcha- 
prachikoff, the Vice-President of the Sobranie, Momtchiloff, 
General Koutintcheff, etc. 

It was Tchaprachikoff who welcomed the guests at 
Nish. The deputy von Haydebrand replied : 

" We shall conquer ; this country will belong to you. Momt- 
chileff said, ' The German artillery had to be brought to clear 
the Balkans. Welcome, brothers of the heroes of Verdun, of 
the gallant men of Brest-Litovsk and the Skagerrack, worthy 
representatives of the infinite German might.' ..." 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 107 

At the stations of Bela Palanka and Pirot showy mani- 
festations were organised. But the real surprise was 
reserved for Sofia. The Bulgarian press went into trans- 
ports : 

" Sofia ! ' Ja ; das ist Sofia.' The guests gazed earnestly 
at the new Balkan town, where the fate of the Balkans was 
decided. . . . Aeroplanes hovered above the train, and threw 
down little flags. The platform was crowded, the station gaily 
decorated. . . . The streets were blocked with people. The 
motor cars forged slowly ahead through the mass of thousands 
who saluted the guests. Flowers rained from all parts on the 
distinguished guests. Above all, the youth of the schools 
threw flowers crying ' Hoch !' and ' Hurrah !' The guests could not 
respond to all the salutations. The streets were magnificently 
ornamented with the allied flags and garlands of foliage. The 
people began to fill the streets from 3 o'clock in the afternoon. 
At 5 o'clock it was impossible to cross the street. A crowd of 
several thousand people surrounded the Hotel de Bulgarie 
and filled the adjacent streets. Amidst the joyous acclama- 
tions of the crowd the guests showed themselves on the balcony, 
greeted by hurrahs and hochs, and the school bands, which 
played the German National Anthem. Then the choirs of 
pupils sang the German hymn and some national songs. The 
enthusiasm surpassed all expectations. All the pupils of the 
lycees and schools defiled before the guests, singing and shout- 
ing ' Hurrah ! ' and ' Hoch ! ' The ovations before the Hotel de 
Bulgarie continued until late in the evening." 

On the third day, June 27th, at the dinner given by 
the Chamber of Commerce and Industries, the president 
of the German colony at Sofia said in the course of his 
speech that " the development of Bulgaria, commercially 
and industrially , can only be compared to the progress made 
by the United States of America." 

At the Red Cross Hospital, the President of the Red 
Cross, M. Ivan Gueshoff, welcomed the guests. 

At five o'clock tea was served at the offices of the Internal 
Macedonian Organisation. In addition to the members 
of the Government, there were present Dr. Ghenadieff 
(Stamboulovist), Fadenhecht (Radical), Rachko-Madjaroff 
(Democrat), Professors Chichmanoff and Miletitch, and 
others. Among the journalists was the editor of the 
Preporetz. 

The next day the same manifestations continued in 
the provinces, where the German guests were cheered and 
welcomed by the authorities, the municipalities, the schools, 
and the public. Masses of people from the villages 



108 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

assembled at r all the stations that were passed. The 
deputy Miiller was right in saying that. the journey of the 
German deputies was " a triumphal march." 

The press, on its part, displayed the greatest sympathy. 

The Narodni Prava of June 24th wrote : 

" On October 14th last year the Bulgarian and German 
armies met near Brza Palanka and sealed the alliance between 
Germany and Bulgaria with the blood which their valiant 
regiments shed for the great work of the two nations. The 
joy in Bulgaria was indescribable. It was impossible to describe 
it, because it exceeded all hopes and expectations. The Bul- 
garian people expresses to the German deputies its satisfaction 
and unutterable joy at the great honour done to Bulgaria by 
the powerful Emperor of Germany, William II., in coming to 
Nish . . . in Bulgarian territory, to pay his respects to the 
King of Bulgaria, whom the entire Bulgarian people venerates 
deeply. It was at Nish that the Emperor of Germany said 
that Bulgaria and the Bulgarian people were near his heart." 

The same journal, on June 25th, under the title of 
" Welcome," had the following : 

" We hope the alliance between Berlin and Sofia, between 
Germany and Bulgaria will be perpetual. The Bulgarian 
people have never suffered harm from the Germans, and that 
is the best pledge that our hearts will always beat in harmony. . . . 
The present manifestation will show our common enemies 
that the alliance we have formed is indeed a barrier of iron, 
which cannot be broken or overthrown, and against which our 
enemies will finish by breaking their own heads. Now that 
the blood-stained horizons outline the silhouettes of victorious 
Germanism and its faithful allies, we emphasise our absolute 
solidarity, and our resolution to carry on the work we have 
undertaken to the end." 

The Dnevnik of June 25th declared : 

" The German deputies will feel the pulse of the pure 
cordiality of the faithful Bulgarian alliance ; they will be able 
to prove the fact of the unanimity of all classes of the nation 
in the wish to continue the great effort to its desired end. In 
the environment of all the political groups they will see the 
fusion of the moral and material forces of Bulgaria, and in- 
vincible faith in the victory of the alliance ; they will observe 
how proud the Bulgarian nation is to be associated with the Central 
Powers in the task of realising the aims of the great alliance." 

The Outro of June 25th wrote : 

" Appreciating to the full the honour done to us by your 
visit, proud of the attention you bestow on our country, glad 
and joyful at the aid your heroic and all-powerful nation lends 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 109 

to Bulgaria, we are happy to be able to say to you, ' Welcome, 
gentlemen, to this Bulgaria which receives you with open arms, 
3^ou the worthy representatives of victorious and illustrious 
Germany, crowned with the laurels of an eternal glory.' " 

The Echo de Bulgarie of June 26th : 

" The reception of the members of the Reichstag will remain 
an event in the history of the young Bulgarian capital. It is 
long since a welcome so brilliant and so warm has been recorded." 

In a speech of lofty eloquence at the station, in reply 
to the greeting of the Mayor of Sofia — a speech which 
impressed profoundly all who heard it — Dr. Muller said that 
the journey of the delegation had been a triumphal progress : 

" In acclaiming the German guests, the population of Sofia 
acclaimed the German nation in the persons of its representa- 
tives ; it hailed with enthusiasm the great allied country whose 
powerful aid has permitted Bidgaria to expand to her natural 
proportions. 

" The cunning and envious enemy to the West has been 
destroyed, and the valleys of the Morava and the Vardar have 
been reunited to the central knot of the Balkan Peninsula. 

" The eminent men who represent the great political currents 
of the empire can be convinced by contact with our political 
environments that the rapprochement of Germany and Bidgaria, 
imposed by the logic of events, the community of aspirations 
and interests, and crowned with splendid results has become 
a national conviction." 

Voenni Izvestia (June 25th) : 

" The Bulgarian capital has often received illustrious guests. 
But few of them have been awaited with so much pleasure. 
We see in the German nation a great teacher, and in the German 
spirit the greatest treasury of virtues." 

The Narodni Prava (June 28th) said : 

" The representatives of an ingenious, energetic military 
people, the German nation, are among us. We rejoice, with all 
our hearts, to have merited this mark of esteem, and we are 
encouraged by what they tell us : ' Fear nothing ; we are 
with you.' They find with us a warm and sincere welcome, 
and there, where the German people perishes, the Bulgarian people 
will perish also. . . . The Bulgarian nation, in alliance with 
Germany, will advance on the way of progress with giant strides. 
The white bear, half stripped of his skin, is going to repair to 
the vast steppes, the Siberian marshes, and the icy rocks to 
bind up his wounds. ..." 

With the exception of the extreme Socialists, all the 
opposition took part in the manifestations. 



116 BULGARIA SELF- REVEALED 

The Mir (June 25th) wrote : 

" We have proved in the past that we are not a prejudiced 
people, a people of caprice, but that we know how to calculate, 
persuaded that only good reckonings make good friends. If 
the Bulgars had not possessed these qualities Bulgaria would not 
have attained the enviable position in which, before this war and 
before the Balkan war, she won esteem and respect in London as 
at Berlin, at Petrograd as in Vienna." 

The Mir of June 28th stated : 

" The eminent member of the German national party 
and of the Reichstag who was among our guests, in the course 
of his speech, gave utterance to an idea which merits longer 
consideration. He said that our German guests had come to 
Bulgaria to greet the whole nation, not to fortify a party. To 
prove it, he reminded us that his colleagues belong to different 
groups (all parties are represented except the Socialists). At 
the 5 o'clock tea yesterday given by the Macedonian Brother- 
hood he developed his idea before a group of our politicians 
containing representatives of different tendencies (Dr. Faden- 
hecht, Vladimir Moloff, D. Gueurtcheff, Dr. Ivan Chichmanoff, 
Ivan Pe'ieff, and others). It is a pleasure to us to state that 
the Germans examine and study our political life carefully, and 
that they wish to attach themselves (as the eminent German 
sociologist and writer has declared) not to one party only, but 
to the Bulgarian people in its entirety. ..." 

The Preporetz of June 25th wrote : 

" The deputies of the Reichstag saluted the Bulgarian 
people at Berlin, and to-day they come among us to pay homage 
to Bulgaria. We hope they will not be disagreeably surprised 
here. We are a young nation — ein Naturvolk, as they would 
say, which is now elaborating the contingencies of its social 
life. We are waging a war which compels us to defend our 
country with all the energy which characterises us, even against 
those who called us to freedom. Wars are to-day works of 
necessity." 

One group only refused to take part in the reception, 
that of the extreme Socialists, whose organ, the Rabot- 
nitchenski Vestnik, of June 24th said : 

" Yesterday, at the sitting of the Sofia Municipal Council, 
Dr. J. Dimitroff declared in the name of his group that he could 
not participate in the reception of the German deputies, and 
that he opposed any municipal expenditure with this object, 
for the following reasons : The German deputies about to 
visit Bulgaria represent the Imperialist policy which has pro- 
voked the present war, and are partisans of the prolongation 
of the war to the end— to the complete victory of German 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 111 

Imperialism. Their journey has a purely, political character, 
and is only a link in a long chain of measures forged in order 
to dominate the Balkans, especially Bulgaria, economically 
and perhaps politically also." 

The Narodni Prava, in a leader (July 6th), cites a speech 
of the German deputy, Dr. Naumann, showing the merits 
of the President of the Council, Radoslavoff, in bringing 
about the alliance of Bulgaria and Germany : 

" The policy of Dr. Radoslavoff has been crowned with success, 
and has become the policy not only of the Liberal party, but of the 
whole Bulgarian people. And that people has faith to-day in its 
President of the Council, whilst contemplating the results of his 
efforts." 

The A z Est of July 9th spoke of the enthusiasm with 
which the German deputies had been received in Bulgaria : 

" The German deputies have returned from Bulgaria by- 
way of the Danube. When their boat came in sight of Belgrade 
a dinner was served on board. The Governor of Serbia and 
Tchaprachikoff were present." 

Naumann stated to a correspondent of the Az Est : 
" The Entente press has asserted more than once that King 
Ferdinand and Radoslavoff were leading the country into a 
policy which did not respond to the will of the people. The 
contrary is true. On our visit to Bulgaria it became evident 
that the people displayed the greatest cordiality beyond all expecta- 
tion, and in full agreement with the decisions of the Government. 
We are still impressed by the strong and indomitable enthusiasm 
with which the people received us. . . . Nobody can say that 
it was an official reception, because the peasantry came spon- 
taneously, offering us gifts. The population of the towns emptied 
into the streets where we happened to be. I can say without 
exaggeration that a tenth of the Bulgarian people took part in 
the welcome. The peasants invaded the towns even when our 
stay was only a quarter of an hour. Our presence was a symbol, 
and it offered to the Bidgarian people an opportunity of expressing 
ivhat they felt in their hearts. We are returning home glad and 
grateful, certain that henceforward the adhesion of Bulgaria 
to Central Europe is an irrefutable fact." 

Dr. Muller-Meininger, Bavarian deputy of the Liberal 
left, made to the correspondent of the Neue .Zurcher Zeitung 
(July 27th) the following communication : 

" There was nothing prepared, nothing got up. Children 
came from remote villages with their teachers, and everything 
showed that these latter had inspired the children with sympathy 
for the Germans. . . . Everywhere homage was paid to German 



112 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

work and honesty. . . . The officers of reserve who have been 
at German universities play an important part, and are the 
mainspring of friendship with Germans. The knowledge of 
the German language is widespread in Bulgaria ; everywhere 
the young people sing German songs. One can hear ' Deutschland 
iiber Alles ' impeccably executed in every village. The policy 
of the King, which is Germanophil, is supported by the 
Parliament and the entire country." 

The same manifestations were repeated later on every 
occasion. The Wolff telegrams of German victories, the 
speeches of Bethmann-Hollweg, the Roumanian interven- 
tion, the anniversary of Bulgaria entering the war, the 
conquest of Serbia — all these events served as pivots of a 
demonstration. 

In the manifestations for Hungary, solidarity of interests 
is insisted upon ; in declarations concerning the Dual 
monarchy as a whole, homage is rendered for services in 
the past ; but in its enthusiasm for Germany and the 
Germans, the practical Bulgarian mind never forgets to renew 
its hope that the promises for the future will be kept. They 
continue exchanging compliments with Austria-Hungary, 
they declare their efforts and programme are at one with 
those of Hungary, but at every reference made to the master 
who is at Berlin, they expect a reward for services rendered. 
Bulgaria does not cease to recall the promises which caused 
her to intervene in the war. The Frankfurter Zeitung, 
in its leader of October 28th, 1915, on the junction of the 
German and Bulgarian armies at Brza Palanka, wrote : 

" The Germans and Bulgars have effected their junction. 
The day on which this took place will remain of historic im- 
portance to the world. It was operated on the Serbian front, 
on territory which will constitute a portion of the rewards of 
war which the Bulgarian people has earned by brilliant combats 
under the leadership of its King." 

A year later, when the Bulgars celebrated the anniver- 
sary of this, to them, illustrious date, they did not forget 
the promises made to them before it, and repeated since. 
The Narodni Prava (October 28th, 1916) devoted an article 
to the great and indestructible work, the solid bridge 
between east and west whose boundaries were laid at Brza 
Palanka. When the German deputies arrived at Sofia, 
the Narodni Prava of June 26th recalled the Kaiser's visit 
to Nish : 

" It was then that the Emperor of Germany said, ' My 



BULGARS AND GERMANS 113 

soldiers will fight by the side of the Bulgarian soldiers, in order 
that Bulgaria may occupy her forsaken Macedonia and Morava. 
It is to Bulgaria that all the booty of the annihilated 
Serbian State will go.' " 

Habituated to the Germanic idea of world domination, 
the Bulgars wait with deference before their masters, 
ready with docile servility to play any part, to take up any 
job, but always with hand outstretched for recompense. 
At the prospect of gain, they are enthusiastic, transforming 
and adapting themselves with astonishing suppleness and 
celerity. The success which only one year of German 
domination and propaganda has obtained in Bulgaria 
is a veritable revelation of Bulgarian temperament and 
character, to those who did not know them. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE GERMANISATION OF BULGARIA 

The Bulgarian temperament, hard and inflexible, sullen 
and distrustful, adapted itself suddenly, expanded into 
enthusiasm for Bulgaro-German fraternity. Germany's 
latest ally has become the most devoted. A thousand kilo- 
metres of distance have not hindered Bulgaria from drawing- 
nearer to Prussia than the federated States of the German 
Empire. Buda-Pesth, formerly quite a German town, 
appears less so to-day than Sofia. 

The facility for adaptation of the Prussians of the Balkans 
and the organisation of German propaganda have aided 
each other mutually. It is evident, and the Mir remarks 
it, that the Germans have shown themselves good psycho- 
logists by divining in the practical Bulgarian people the 
sense of calculation. 

Even before the formal conclusion of the alliance, the 
Germans had attached themselves to Bulgaria by economic 
and financial ties. German commercial and industrial 
expansion in Bulgaria is of old date, and developed rapidly. 
The German character of the Court of Coburg, and the 
education of a large number of Bulgars in German univer- 
sities and schools, military, technical and commercial, 
largely facilitated the propaganda. Notwithstanding this, 
the year which has just elapsed has witnessed a great 
transformation. 

The exercise of the supreme command of the army, 
and the direct administration of means of communication* 
have furnished the Germans with very good instruments 
for the rapid Germanisation of Bulgaria. The organisation 
of economic relations has also given to the Germans a means 
of considerably strengthening their influence. Bulgarian 

* The Minister of Public Works, Apostoloff, declared to the Sobranie : 
" It is in the interests of the State that some lines of railway should be 
worked b}' our allies." (Mir, December 29th, 1916.) 

114 



THE GERMANISATION OF. BULGARIA 115 

importation and exportation in 1916 has been, in fact, 
monopolised by an organisation German not only financially 
but, to a large extent, administratively. To justify and 
veil this exploitation, which became an abuse before the 
autumn of 1916*, Germany unceasingly lulled Bulgaria 
by the propaganda of Mittel-Europa theorists, and grandiose 
plans which assigned her a great role in the economic 
community of the Central Powers, and the function of 
intermediary between east and west. 

The " peaceful penetration " of the Germans in Bulgaria, 
so well organised, was effected not only by the influence 
of the authorities controlling the army and communications, 
but also by the propaganda of representatives of humani- 
tarian institutions, by the visits and lectures of economists, 
writers and professors, by the propaganda of associations 
formed especially with this intent, by courses of lessons in 
German, etc. 

Among practical means calculated to appeal to the 
Bulgarian mind, Germany made use, above all, of humani- 
tarian institutions, of her Red Cross, and associations 
newly created for the purpose. 

The German committee of aid for the Bulgarian Red 
Cross was presided over by Duke Johann Albrecht of 
Mecklenburg. When institutes of disinfection against 
malarial fever in Macedonia were established, King Fer- 
dinand personally thanked the German mission. The 
Bulgarian newspapers continually congratulate and thank 
the missions. The collections for the Bulgarian Red Cross 
are made with the help of the authorities and the partici- 
pation of personages of the highest rank. These German 
donations have amounted to large sums. The success of 
this act of political benevolence shows how much Germany 
has striven to supplant Russia among the masses. Bulgaro- 
German associations are founded on both sides, conferences 
and exhibitions are organised. 

* This is one of the chief causes why Bulgaria, an agricultural country, 
experienced a scarcity of foodstuffs after one year of war only. After 
innumerable protests, complaints, and discussions, absorbing the whole 
of the activity of Parliament in the summer and autumn of 1916, the 
question was solved by the law of " public precaution," which regulated 
the internal consumption without checking the abuses of exploitation. 
In March, 1917, Bulgaria reached a shortage even of things of which 
indigenous production exceeded the consumption. It was then that a 
dictatorship was established controlling the victualling of the army 
and civil population, and this dictatorship was confided to an officer, 
Protogueroff, recently promoted to the rank of general. The Bulgarian 
dictator is a notorious Germanophil and a protege of the Kaiser. 



116 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Vossische Zeitung of February 16th announced that 
the Germano-Bulgarian Association has held a meeting in 
the Parliament building at Berlin under the presidency of 
Duke Ernst Gunther of Schleswig-Holstein. This body will 
be subsidised by the State, and has for its object the develop- 
ment of the intellectual and material interests of the Bul- 
garian and German people exclusively. According to the 
Echo de Bulgarie (February 18th) the Germano-Bulgarian 
Association held its first sitting on February 2nd. Pro- 
fessors Miletitch and MichaTloff, of Sofia, were present. 
Rizoff was elected honorary member. 

Here is the order in which the principal Bulgaro-German 
Societies were founded in Germany up to August, 1916 : 

In 1912, at Munich, was founded " Der Donau und 
Balkan lander Verein." A section of this society concerned 
itself solely with Bulgaria. In 1913, at Berlin, was formed 
" Der Deutsche Balkan Verein," with the object of trading 
with all Balkan States. In November, 1914, was founded 
at Berlin " Der Deutsche-Bulgarische Verein." In autumn, 
•1915, Professor Gurlitt founded at Dresden " Die Deutsch- 
Bulgarische Vereinigung." During the winter, 1915-1916, 
was inaugurated at Munich " Die Deutsch-Bulgarische 
Gesellschaft " ; afterwards " Die Hamburger Vereinigung 
von Freunden Bulgarien " ; " Das Institut fur den Wirt- 
schaftsverkehr mit Bulgarien," and in January, 1916, was 
inaugurated at Berlin " Die Deutsch-Bulgarische Gesell- 
schaft " and " Die Deutsche Levante Verband." The 
societies " Der Deutsche Balkan Verein," " Das Institut 
fur den Wirtschaftsverkehr mit Bulgarien," and " Die 
Deutsche Levante Verband " pursue economic aims, whilst 
the others are devoted to strengthening moral and intellec- 
tual relations with Bulgaria. (Echo de Bulgarie, August 
17th, 1916.) 

The Berliner Tageblatt (February 18th) announced that 
at the war exhibitions to be held at Berlin the Bulgars would 
contribute the carriage of King Peter and several Serbian 
flags. The Berlin artists organised an exhibition of Bulgarian 
art in May, 1916. An exhibition of Bulgarian broidery, 
ornaments and costumes was held at Munich. 

The Zafia of October 28th, and the Outro of November 
4th, 1916, announced that the literary society " Die Klause " 
had organised a Bulgarian soiree for October 30th. Dora 
Tcherman recited poetry of Hristo Boteff, I. Vazoff, Pentcho 
Slaveikoff, Kiril Hristoff, and Yavoreff, etc. 



THE GERMANISATION OF BULGARIA 117 

The Vossische Zeitung (November 21st) wrote : 
" In conformity with a wish of the Queen of Bulgaria, the 
Germano-Bulgarian Association of Berlin has founded the 
' Bulgarian House ' in the Berlin Club of Men of Letters. Among 
others present we remarked ' the son of President of the Council 
Radoslavoff, who is attached to a regiment of the Guards at 
Berlin.' " 

The Dnevnik (April 4th) announced that on the initiative 
of Professor Dr. Wiegand, a Bulgarian Library of Science 
was about to be published at Leipzig in German. The 
editor was Yvan Parlapanoff. The series of volumes would 
treat of divers questions of economics, Bulgarian literary 
and military* history, as well as Bulgarian history, geo- 
graphy and ethnology. 

Bulgaro-German propaganda, wishful not to neglect 
any means or opportunity of action, has often resorted to 
very childish and trivial expedients. The same mani- 
festations as those in June, 1916, are repeated on the 
occasion of every visit, and always wind up with " Deutsch- 
land, Deutschland iiber Alles."f The theatres and cinemas 
of Berlin, like those of Sofia, incessantly work upon these 
showy tendencies. German playwrights and musicians 
bring out pieces turning on Bulgarian motifs. The Vossische 
Zeitung (November 23rd), for example, announces that the 
operetta, " The Bulgarian Woman," by Hans Bodenstatt, 
music by H. Menecke, is inspired by two Bulgarian ballads. 

* An executive committee was formed at Sofia to aid in carrying 
out this enterprise. The list of members included Professors Ichirkoff, 
VI. Molkoff, Andre Protitich, and the director of the Bulgarian Press 
Bureau, Herbst. Professor Wiegand was named director of the periodical, 
and Professors Ubersberger (Vienna), Asboth (Buda-Pesth), Kassner 
(Berlin), and Ichirkoff (Sofia), members of the editorial committee. 

A treatise by Professor Ichirkoff, " Bulgaria : Land and People," 
was to appear as the first issue of the library ; it would be followed by 
" Macedonia : Land and People," by Prof. Miletitch ; " Bulgarian 
History " (to 1492), by Prof. Zlatarski ; " Bulgarian History " (from 
1492 to 1914), by N. Staneff ; " The Bulgarian Peasant," by Prof. Danaii- 
loff ; " Bulgarian Folk-literature," by Wiegand ; " Popular Economic 
Development of Bulgaria" (1879-1814), by Kyril Popoff ; "The Evolu- 
tion of the Defensive Power of Bulgaria, and the Present Position," by 
Colonel Kosta Nikoloff. (Dnevnik, April 4th.) 

f The Berliner Tageblatt of December 6th is informed : "At the 
station of the zoological gardens the Lieut.-General (en disponibiliU) 
Imhof Pasha, the explorer of the Balkans, Dr. Falkschup, and Prof. D. 
Heck came to wish a pleasant journey to the Bulgarian students. General 
(en disponibiliU) Siemens, having harangued the students, Nikola Daneff 
replied and ended by shouting, ' The God of Battles is with us ! Good 
health to you ! Au revoir until after victory ! Long live the Kaiser ! 
Long live the victorious German nation ! ' The Bulgars sang the ' Shoumi 
Maritza ' and ' Deutschland iiber Alles.' " 



118 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

All the cinemas in Germany have shown a Bulgarian 
film (film Bogdan Stimoff) with a tragic and patriotic 
subject, and among the actors filmed are the royal couple 
of Bulgaria. The premieres of this film were given in the 
presence of the highest Germano-Bulgarian dignitaries, 
and provoked the most tumultuous manifestations of 
Bulgaro-German friendship. The Berliner Tageblatt of 
September 8th, and other journals, devoted entire articles 
to it. The welcome of the German deputies to Sofia was 
also filmed to serve as a stimulus to manifestations in the 
cinemas (Mir, November 4th). As for the cinemas of Sofia, 
they produced unceasingly well-known films of German 
propaganda.* 

The propagators of Germano-Bulgarian fraternity judged 
it necessary also to found at Sofia a daily newspaper in 
German. Sofia had possessed for a long time a commercial 
journal, published in Bulgarian and German (Bulgarisches 
Handelsblatt). The new German daily Deutsche Balkan- 
zeitung appeared in 1917. 

The propagation of the German language is pursued 
without relaxation both by writing and speaking. During 
their stay at Vienna, the Bulgarian deputies held a con- 
ference on May 4th, 1916, with the President of the Austrian 
Parliament, Dr. Sylvester. The Bulgars insisted emphati- 
cally on the importance of the German language. 

" Altimirski declared that much attention is paid in Bulgaria 
to the study of German, and that German teachers are in great 
demand. It may be admitted that, even before the alliance 
of Bulgaria with the Central Powers in this war, about half the 
population was well disposed towards the Germans. Since the 
Bulgars, fighting side by side with the Austrian and German 
armies, have obtained great military successes, enthusiasm for 
the allies has become so intense in Bulgaria that at present 
the entire Bulgarian nation is on the side of the Central Powers 
with all its soul. Everything beautiful or useful is looked upon 
by the Bulgars as German." (Zeit, May 7th, 1916.) 

According to the Echo de Bulgarie (February 8th, 1916), 
since the beginning of Bulgarian intervention, the Kultur- 
verein at Sofia has organised special courses of Bulgarian 
and German. After the departure of the German deputies, 
the Narodni Prava for several consecutive days published in 
German at the head of its first page the speeches and 

* The Prussian War Minister organised cinematograph soirees, even 
in the National Theatre at Sofia. {Dnevnik, September 30th, 1916.) 



THE GERMANISATION OF BULGARIA 119 

articles of all the German guests. The Sofia newspapers 
insert all the advertisements of German courses and lessons 
in German. The Frankfurter Zeitung (July ioth, 1916) 
states that the German language is gaining ground in Bul- 
garia day by day. The German classes overflow with pupils. 
In order to show to what degree Germanisation has taken 
hold of Bulgaria, it is of interest to quote from the German 
press an echo of the visit of the German deputies. 
The Kolnische Zeitung (July 13th, 1916) wrote : 
"The Bulgars take pleasure in the exaggeration, '// you 
want to learn Bulgarian do not stay at Sofia, because people speak 
only German there.' " 

Only a whimsical sally, but it is characteristic. 



The eulogy of German culture and the German tongue 
is a subject of which the Sofia press is never wean/. In 
the Mir, the opposition organ, and one of the most intelli- 
gent and best edited journals, we have seen Boris Vazoff 
calling the German people " the most civilised," and writing 
in the expectation that its influence will produce " the moral 
renaissance of the Bulgars." 

In an article entitled " The Common Ground of Germano- 
Bulgarian Culture," in the Narodni Prava of February 3rd, 
Al. Makedonski advises the Bulgars to adopt as much as 
possible German " Kultur." " No other civilisation," he 
says, " can become us so well, by its character, as German 
civilisation." 

The Dnevnik (February 9th) published a leader under 
the heading " Abandon all Hope," in which it said : 

" If the nineteenth century is marked by the seal of French 
civilisation and English enterprise, the twentieth century will 
be the century of German culture. . . . France has already 
given to humanity what she could ; she is now exhausted and 
needs repose and regeneration. It is the turn of Germany, 
and she will prevail, even if the Entente enlists other States 
in its cause." 

In order to pay homage to German civilisation, the 
Bulgars decided to organise immediately after the tour of 
the politicians, a great excursion of artists and writers 
through Germany.* 

* The Kolnische Zeitung announced under the date of November 
20th : In the month of May of this year the best known Bulgarian writers 
decided, at a meeting held at Sofia, to visit the German people, and thus 



120 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The same servile spirit, which in politics has placed the 
Bulgars under the domination of German power, prostated 
itself, with admiration, before Germanism and its most 
trivial manifestations. 

The Echo de Bulgarie (July 14th, 1916), together with 
all the Bulgarian press, goes into ecstasies over the exploit 
of the German submarine Deutschland. 

" The exploit of the Deutschland, coming at the same time 
as the great sterile offensive of the Entente, is of an import 
that we would designate as symbolic. Indeed, it symbolises 
the rare moral qualities of the German people and their 
invincibility. A nation which achieves marvels cannot be van- 
quished by a coalition of vile instincts. The passage of the 
Atlantic by the first mercantile submarine built in Germany 
has results more durable for the evolution of the war than 
the fourteen thousand yards gained by the English army in 
fifteen days, after ten months of vast preparation." 

In autumn, 1916, the organ of the Democrats, the most 
vigorous party in the Bulgarian opposition, defends German 
submarine warfare as legitimate and in conformity with 
the law of nations. 

The Preporetz (October 13th, 1916) says : 

" Dread of travelling will have a harmful influence on the 
provisioning of the Entente as well as on the production of 
munitions of war. Submarine warfare made in conformity with 
international law will not be interrupted. It will continue as 
long as the war lasts." 

The German declaration of submarine warfare a outrance, 



create the first approach of intellectual Bulgaria to Germany. The German- 
Bulgarian Association of Berlin hastened to respond to the wish of the 
Bulgars. The Director of the Academy of Fine Arts accepted the presi- 
dency of the Committee of Honour. Here are the names of the Bulgarian 
men of letters who will visit us : the former Director of the National 
Library, Dr. M. Titchoff, who knows Germans extremely well, and is 
the best literary critic of Bulgaria ; old Ivan Vazoff, the great popular 
poet, whose renown has spread through the universe, far beyond the 
frontiers of his country ; the philosopher Mihailovsky ; the lyric poet 
and great friend of Germans, Kiril Hristoff ; the man most versed in 
knowledge of Bulgarian rustic life, and best loved by the people, Elin 
Pelin ; A. Strachimiroff and D. Nemiroff, who have now won celebrity 
by their vivid stories of the life of Bidgarian soldiers. Our guests propose 
to visit Berlin, Hamburg, Cologne, Frankfort, Carlsruhe, Stuttgart, 
Munich, Weimar, Dresden, Leipzig, and Breslau. In each of these cities 
there will be a Bulgarian artistic soiree, where the German people will 
hear from the lips of the best Bulgarian artists of the National Opera 
and National Theatre of Sofia the pearls of Bulgarian literature and 
music." 

This pilgrimage took place in February, 1017, with much display. 



THE GERMANISATION OF BULGARIA 121 

on February ist, 1917, was hailed by the Bulgarian press 
with the same admiration and enthusiasm. 

The Narodni Prava (February 3rd) : 

" Henceforth it will be impossible for the Entente to import 
foreign produce, arms, and munitions. Its populations will 
suffer new horrors. Exulting with joy and enthusiasm, the 
Bulgarian people, as well as their Government, express once 
more their admiration and respect for the sublime and valorous 
German nation." 

From the Preporetz (February 3rd) : 

" The consequences of the new blows, directed this time 
against the weakest spot in the Entente, will be rapid, imme- 
diate, and very grave. The war a outrance which is begun will 
soiv confusion in the plans of the Entente, and the present superiority 
of the Central Powers on the fronts will be reinforced." 

From the Zafia (February 4th) : 

" The last struggle will be waged without mercy and with- 
out consideration. . . . The submarine war a outrance will 
be a decisive factor, whether in the annihilation of the Anglo- 
French domination on the sea, or the crushing of the Entente 
on the Continent." 

From the Narodni Prava (February 5th) : 
" Whoever hopes to cause greater sacrifices in the ranks 
of the Central Empires will be punished without pity. . . . 
We are firmly convinced that no neutral power will protest 
against these new measures. If there should be a neutral country 
acting to the contrary, well, that country will be punished as it 
deserves." 

From the Socialist Narod (February 5th) : 

" England has finished by falling into the trap she laid for 

all the world. Whatever turn events may take, England will 

come out of this war with colossal losses." 

From the Preporetz (February 5th) : 

' ' The blockade declared by Germany has caused indescribable 
fright. Public opinion among the Entente, so far as we can 
judge from the press, is much excited and scared, above all in 
England, where the commencement of a horrible phase of the 
war is best understood." 

From the Mir (February 6th) : 

"... Germany does not possess so many battleships and 
cruisers as the whole of the Entente, but as a set-off she disposes 
of a larger number of submarines. It is by the latter that 
she will impose the blockade. Can anyone maintain seriously 
that one means is less legal than another ? " 



122 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

From the Kambana (February 6th) : 

," The submarine is an enemy that cannot be reached in 
the vast sea, and it will have a rich harvest, seeing that four 
thousand vessels a week enter and quit English waters alone ; 
the submarines will throw themselves on these like xvolves on a 
flock of sheep." 

From the Voenni Izvesiia (February 7th) : 

" The submarine war a outrance frees the hands and does 
away with the barriers that have paralysed operations. To-day 
the ' U-boat pest,' as submarine warfare has been called in 
England, hovers around Great Britain." 

From the Preporetz (February 7th) : 

" Submarine warfare a outrance, without scruple, without 
pity. The implacable enemies of Germany do not want peace 
before she has been destroyed. Our ally makes appeal to 
another means by which to force them to make peace." 

From the Kambana (February 8th) : 

" For life or death is the watchword proclaimed by the 
Kaiser, and this watchword will triumph, in the sense that it 
will bring peace and life to the Central Alliance, and bring 
new humiliations, new misery, and catastrophe on those who 
lead the Entente, and their satellites." 

For Bulgaria, as for Germany, the most brilliant repre- 
sentatives of high Germanic culture are, and have been 
since the beginning of the war, the Kaiser, Hindenburg, 
and Mackensen. Every speech and every article contains 
eulogies of the Kaiser : his portraits in every attitude 
fill the Bulgarian reviews. As an example of the trivialities 
with which the Bulgarian public are regaled on " the per- 
sonification of German genius," it will be enough to cite 
an article in the Narodni Prava (May 31st, 1916), three 
columns in length, on " Kaiser William, Collegian." 

Hindenburg is the idol of the Bulgarian press. The 
Echo de Bitlgarie wrote on October 4th, 1916 : 

" In the immense conflict which is turning Europe upside 
down, Germany, for more than two years, has given proof of 
moral qualities and social virtues unattained hitherto by any 
other nation. And in Germany, facing a world of jealousy and 
hatred, Hindenburg is the typical representative of the race." 

The Mir (Gueshoff ) wrote : 

" Whether by hazard or not, the great military leaders 
belong to the Central Empires ; there is a line of them rising 
gradually to Hindenburg. This is an indisputable fact, and it 
permits the Central Empires to regard the future with tran- 



THE GERMANISATION OF BULGARIA 123 

quillity and to look forward to final victory. The Bulgarian 
people is also one of these nations." 

This fetishism is general in the Bulgarian press. Even 
the Socialist organ Narod is not exempt. The Narod 
enumerates the virtues of the German marshal, and recom- 
mends that he should be held up as an example to Bulgarian 
youth. (Narod, April 18th, 1916, the fiftieth anniversary 
of Hindenburg's entrance on the military career.) 

Attracted by the tempting prospect of gain, bound 
more closely every day by multiple material ties, and 
subjected more and more to the profound influence of 
Germanism, the Bulgars have grown accustomed to the new 
part which at the beginning they hypocritically affected. 
In binding her destiny to that of her powerful ally, Bulgaria 
has become habituated to such a degree that she has started 
to think and feel like her. The Kaiser, Hindenburg, the 
Deutschland, the 42-centimetre guns, or the bombs dropped 
by Zeppelins on London, are venerated by the descendants 
of Tartars as the pagan gods were formerly venerated by 
the tribes of Asia. The monsters of force, cunning, and 
frightfulness strike the imagination of the impulsive, 
primitive " Prussians of the Balkans " even more than they 
do that of the Prussians of the north. 

This blind worship of material brute force shows kinship 
of mentality between the Bulgar and the German, and 
contains, perhaps, the most interesting and weighty psycho- 
logical explanation of the great and rapid progress of 
Germanism in Bulgaria. " They have found each other," 
as the Kaiser's son said. 



CHAPTER X 

THE BULGARS IN " MITTEL-EUROPA " 

The grandiose plan of the economic union of Mittel-Europa 
conceived by Frederic Naumann has been hailed with 
enthusiasm and approved in Bulgaria for several reasons. 
The first and chief of these is that Mittel-Europa implies 
the doing away with Serbia, whose territory forms an 
essential portion of the Hamburg-Bagdad line of route. 
Another reason is the prospect of vast material profits 
which surpass, in Bulgarian imagination, the value of the 
territory conquered. To these two motives based on tangible 
gains are added two others of a psychological nature. 
The primitive Bulgarian mind was dazzled by the tremen- 
dous perspective opened up by Naumann's scheme. The 
enviable role held out to Bulgaria of becoming the principal 
guardian of the Hamburg-Bagdad route, and the inter- 
mediary between East and West, must have flattered 
Bulgarian megalomania more than the compliments of 
the fox flattered the crow in the fable. 

Numerous speeches and articles already quoted contain 
the idea of a union of States between the North Sea and 
the Persian Gulf. This idea was insisted on principally 
in the first months of Bulgarian intervention. 

We will cite here a passage from the Mir (April 5th, 
1916) which reproduced on its first page a translation of 
an article by Fischer of the Deutsche Nachrichten (March 
26th) devoted to the importance and the role of Bulgaria 
in the Balkans : 

" By the adhesion of Turkey to the Central Powers, and the 
occupation of Serbia, the States of Central Europe have acquired 
a road which they must preserve to assure their world policy 
and their economic prosperity. . . . Bulgaria is not only a 
bridge on the road to Africa and Asia, but also an important link 
uniting Central Europe and the Orient. In any case, aid to 
Bulgaria is indispensable, because she is an independent factor, 

124 



THE BULGARS IN " MITTEL-EUROPA " 125 

and has contributed to the extension of Central Europe towards 
the East." 

The Narodni Prava (May 3rd, 1916) said : 

" Our situation in the Alliance is much more favourable 
than that of its other members, thanks to our position and the 
wealth we possess in abundance. . . . The formation of an 
alliance grouping the States from the North Sea to the Persian 
Gulf will divide the old world into two halves, and will place 
a check on many immoderate desires and many adventures." 

The Bulgarian charge d'affaires at Berne told the 
correspondent of the Vilag (June 23rd, 1916) that " Bulgarian 
markets will never be opened to the Entente ; we wish for 
close ties with the Hungarians and Germans." 

Dr. Paul Ostwal'd has published a pamphlet, " Die 
Kultur-politische Mission Bulgariens," as the eighth volume 
of the " Library of National and Universal Economy " 
(Dresden-Leipzig, Globus, 1916). In it we read : 

" The mission of Bulgaria consists in serving as a link between 
Germany and Turkey. The alliance of Bulgaria with the Central 
Powers and Turkey, concluded in the course of the war, corre- 
sponds with her natural political interests ; that is why it will 
be lasting. . . . She has become a solid link in the chain of 
Powers which extends from the Northern and Eastern seas 
to the Persian Gulf. The Hamburg-Bagdad road will pass 
through Sofia, and Bulgaria is plainly indicated as the inter- 
mediary between West and East. She can now avail herself 
of her geographical position and thus carry out her world mission." 

It was not, properly speaking, the propaganda of Mittel- 
Europa but a manifestation of the same range of ideas that 
Professor R. Vambery, Director-General of the Association 
of Fraternity of Arms of Buda-Pesth, outlined in a lecture 
given in the hall of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry 
at Sofia, in the month of October, 1916. The Mir (Gue- 
shovist) of October 12th wrote on the subject of the lecture 
of Professor Vambery : 

" The project of the creation of such an association must 
have been received with joy at Sofia by all who were present 
at the first meeting. The meeting charged three Bulgars to 
take measures for the formation of an association like that of 
Buda-Pesth." 

* * 
* 

The role and the importance of Bulgaria in Mittel-Europa 

were formulated by the author of Mittel-Europa himself. 

Friedrich Naumann, the famous theorist of Mittel- 



126 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Europa, after the visit of German deputies to Bulgaria, 
in which he himself took part, published a pamphlet en- 
titled " Bulgaria and Mittel-Europa " (Friedrich Naumann : 
Bulgarien u. Mitteleuropa, Berlin, 1916). Naumann affirms 
that with Bulgaria and Turkey, her present allies, Germany 
— and consequently Mittel-Europa — becomes closely and 
eternally bound to the Balkan Peninsula The conflicts 
which are taking place there render those ties enduring, and 
the integrit}^ of Mittel-Europa, as Naumann conceives it, 
becomes impregnable : 

" Defeat in the Balkans would be not only the defeat of the 
Bulgars and Turks, but also that of Mittel-Europa." " The 
victory of the bulgarian armies and the creation of 
a great Bulgaria are needed imperatively by Mittel- 
Europa." 

Moreover, thinks Naumann, the tour of the members 
of the Reichstag in Bulgaria made, evident the sincerity of 
this alliance, and the love that the Bulgars, although " timid 
and suspicious," feel for the Germans. The people them- 
selves, by their spontaneous enthusiasm, showed that they 
approved of the " Mittel-European " policy of their King. 
One feels that Bulgaria has closed the pages of the first 
chapter of her new national existence, from her deliverance 
to the second Balkan war, from 1876 to 1914. Russo- 
philism was the essential characteristic of that period. 
But, fortunately, the Princes of Bulgaria, Germans in origin 
— Battenberg first and Coburg afterwards, the latter above 
all — have shaken down that Russophilism and succeeded in 
bringing the Bulgars into sympathetic touch with the 
Germans. The psychology and character of the people 
were not opposed to that policy. The Bulgars, who have 
nothing of the Latin in them, wished to assimilate French 
civilisation, but were unable to do so, because it was totally 
foreign to them : " they were, like the Germans, too coarse, 
too slow, too serious, and too upright, not agile enough, and 
still great grown-up children." The Bulgars, who are still 
very " Balkanic," full of bad qualities, " distrustful, cunning, 
sly," and whose " new morality is not yet formed," separated 
from Russia under the rule of Coburg — thanks, chiefly, to 
political events in 1912 and 1913 and to the catastrophe 
of 1913 which resulted. In separating from Russia and 
ceasing to like her, more or less, they constituted themselves 
into a more independent political unit, and associated 
themselves irrevocably with Mittel-Europa. 



THE BULGARS IN " MITTEL-EUROPA " 127 

After many diplomatic moves on the part of the Entente, 
as well as on that of the Central Empires, Bulgaria, the 
friend and ally of Turkey, took her place definitely on the 
side of the Central Empires. The fact that a group of 
Austro-Hungarian and German banks, the " Berliner 
Diskonto-Gesellschaft " at the head, advanced half the 
great Bulgarian loan of 500 million francs, delivering 
Bulgaria from the financial yoke of the French in 1914, 
contributed much, according to Naumann, to the realisation 
of the alliance. On another side, the need of vengeance 
against Serbia, the protege of Russia, finally determined the 
decision. 

That is how Bulgaria and Turkey, and with them the 
Balkan Peninsula, entered into affinity with Mittel-Europa. 
For a considerable time, above all during the first years of 
the Triple Alliance, Germany did not entertain altogether 
precise views on the Balkan question, on account of the 
uncertainty of Bulgaro-Turkish policy on the one hand, 
and on the other of certain divergences of Austro-Hungarian 
nd German interests in the Balkans. But now, matters 
ire established on a firm basis. The military alliance of 
the Central Empires with Bulgaria and Turkey must be 
transformed into a permanent alliance for efforts in times 
of peace as well as of war. The historical, geographical, 
political, and economic reasons for Mittel-Europa demand 
such an alliance. 

As for Serbia, Naumann avoids speaking of her so long 
as she is at war with the Central Empires. All the same, 
from his point of view, it is indispensable to preserve 
the territorial link of Austria-Hungary with Bulgaria at the 
expense of Serbia. Without this territorial continuity 
Mittel-Europa is not realisable. 

The German and Austro-Hungarian press has not made 
many comments on this pamphlet. Only the Frankfurter 
Zeitung and the Arbeiter Zeiiung of Vienna publish an 
abstract of the subject without criticism. The Frankfurter 
Zeitung of October 15th, 1916, adds that Naumann's ideas 
are sound and good. 

The Vossische Zeitung (July 7th, 1916) states with 
satisfaction that " Naumann's is the most read book in 
Bulgaria." 

The Bulgarian press has accorded great praise to Nau- 
mann's book, but the economic survey has not been able 
to make much of the promises of Mittel-Europa for Bulgaria. 



128 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The most Germanophil Bulgarian journal, Kambana, 
eulogises the political section, but is obliged to make reser- 
vations on the realisation of the economic ideas of Mittel- 
Europa. 

The professor of Political Economy at the University 
of Sofia, M. A. Tzankoff, has written an economic essay 
entitled " The War of Nations." The aim of the Bulgarian 
author is to explain through economic reasons the coalition 
of Entente nations against those of the Central Alliance. 
It is the German theory, naturally, which inspires the pro- 
fessor of the University of Sofia in his political considera- 
tions. 

At the end of his essay he deals with the question of 
the Customs Union of Mittel-Europa, which he treats with 
great reserve : 

" The political alliance of Mittel-Europa will be possible, 
but the customs frontiers will remain. International commercial 
administration will be established later by treaties of com- 
merce. It is already very difficult to put into practice a customs 
union between Germany and Austria-Hungary ; such a union is 
still less possible between those two countries and Bulgaria, whose 
degree of ' culture ' is on a lower level." [Kambana, September 
5th, 1916.) 

The Bulgars are too practical not to discern the economic 
humbug of Mittel-Europa ; but its political side allures their 
greedy appetites. 



The Bulgarian deputy, D. Kiortcheff, wrote a series of 
articles in the Echo de Bulgarie on the ideas of Friedrich 
Naumann concerning the creation of a Mittel-Europa. Here 
is an abstract of the articles of the deputy Kiortcheff 
which appeared in the Echo de Bulgarie of November 23rd, 
24th and 25th : 

" M. Naumann has crystallised his impressions in two words, 
' Es wdchst' (Bulgaria is growing). He shows by figures that, 
from the economic point of view, Bulgaria has remained up to 
the present exclusively under the influence of the Central and 
Western States of Europe. He says openly what he thinks. 
He says that all this war would be a disaster if it finished in 
misunderstandings between the Allies. The maintenance of 
peace ought to be sought in the grouping of States with similar 
political interests. 

" M. Naumann quotes the following lines from the memoirs 
of Bismarck : ' If I had been an Austrian Minister I should 



THE BULGARS IN " MITTEL-EUROPA " 129 

not have made difficulties with the Russians about the acquisi- 
tion of Constantinople.' Bismarck did not take into account 
that if once the Russians were at Constantinople the existence 
itself of the monarchy would be imperilled. When Bismarck 
was writing those words in his journal a change occurred against 
which he had struggled in vain — the secret treaty between 
Germany and Russia, which obliged Germany to neutrality, 
in case Austria-Hungary should attack Russia, was not renewed. 
The policy of Central Europe dates from that moment. 

" Little Bulgaria was prepared for the Central Alliance by 
her geographical position and by the role marked out for her in 
the Balkans. ... If we compare our historical development 
with that of Germany we shall perceive a striking similitude 
in the destiny of the German and Bulgarian peoples. 

" We joined the Central Powers, not only to have Macedonia, 
but also to assure our future. Germany menaced by England 
meant Austria exposed to the attack of Russia, and the fate 
of Central Europe hung in the balance. The crushing of Austria 
would suppress the rivalry of the Great Powers in the Balkans, 
and our ' Balkan old man ' would have seen the Russian regi- 
ments once more, and they would not wish to quit again. 

" The stumbling-block was the annexation of Bosnia and 
Herzegovina. ' The Bosnian crisis,' says M. Naumann, ' showed 
us that a Central European policy imposed mutual defence. 
Bulgaria was a factor in the crisis by the fact of proclaiming, 
officially,' the existing political independence. The European 
war would have broken out then if Serbia had finally wished 
for war with Austria, and if she had been supported by Russia.' 
We have taken an active part in this trial of the political strength 
of the Central Alliance, and it is a success for us because Bulgaria 
chose the right way of political collaboration. 

" ' The two Central Empires,' says Naumann, ' have a great 
common interest in the commercial route to the East through 
Constantinople. Germany, especially, must see to its security, 
because her relations with Turkey depend on it. We know by 
experience what those relations woidd be if the Serbs retained a 
section, of the route. For this Ma'ckensen's army crossed the 
Danube. What is true for the Balkan line is true for the 
Hamburg-Suez route, which we must defend against all comers.' 

" We discern 'two leading ideas in this passage : that of the 
destruction of Serbia, and the necessity for the army of Mackensen 
to cross the Danube, against us or with us. M. Naumann is, 
perhaps, the first German writer and politician to express his 
ideas on Serbia so clearly. ' Some years ago,' writes M. Nau- 
mann, ' I said to a Bulgar that good Germano-Bulgarian rela- 
tions were possible only in case that route were absolutely 
secure. When, with the other German deputies, I was at the 
railway station at Nish, I said : " We and the Bulgar s must 
destroy the enemy control of the Belgrade-Nish-Pirot line." 



130 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

" Let us remember these words. 

" ' The best guarantee for the maintenance of the alliance 
with Bulgaria,' says M. Naumann, ' consists in the final solution 
of all Balkan questions. If, after peace, the old national hatreds 
are stirred up, the Balkan Peninsula will remain the same nest 
of continual disorders. The old hankering for protection of 
the Russians and English will persist.' 

" In order to avoid this, M. Naumann proposes that the 
Germans, Austrians, Hungarians and Bulgars should elaborate 
a programme for the Balkans. The most interested are always 
the Hungarians and Bulgars. Austrian interests lean preferably 
towards the Adriatic coast, Dalmatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina. 
The Germans have scarcely any interests in those countries." 
{Echo de Bulgarie, November 23rd, 24th, 25th.) 

* * 

* 

Through the disposition to imitation, servility towards 
the stronger, an infatuation for showy German politics, 
and above all, through hypocrisy, the Bulgars have made a 
pretence of discovering in Mittel-Europa the political and 
economic elixir which will cure every ill and save from every 
peril, but in reality the only things they have at heart are 
the prospects of territorial gains, the common frontier with 
Hungary, and the annexation of eastern Serbia. 



CHAPTER XI 

THE BULGARS AGAINST THE RUSSIANS 

We have said that in order to discover the "beginnings of 
the anti-Russian movement, it would be necessary to go 
back to the epoch of the Russo-Turkish war. It was then 
that it germinated, under the Russian military and pro- 
visional administration of the occupied Bulgarian territory. 
It was a consequence of personal grievances and the efforts 
of the first political agitators operating in the chaos of 
newly-formed Bulgaria. The fact that it was able to take 
some root among Bulgarian intellectuals (the mass of the 
people being outside all political currents and without 
influence on public life) can only be explained by an instinc- 
tive trait in their character, a trait on which the Bulgarians 
themselves insist : distrust of all who are stronger than 
themselves*, and the impossibility of comprehending that 
he who possesses the power can refrain from using it to 
oppress those who are weaker. It was not difficult to 
engraft on this instinctive feeling of suspicion towards 
Russia an anti-Russian trend in Bulgarian foreign policy. 
Anti-Russian notions may be summed up in the two follow- 
ing, which are- essential : the danger for Bulgaria in 
Russian domination of the Dardanelles, and the opposition 
of Russian and Bulgarian views on Balkan politics in 
general. 

In their attacks on Russia, the Bulgars have never 
succeeded in demonstrating clearly in what consists the 
danger for Bulgaria, arising from Russian control of the 
Straits. 

To instance a well-known fact, a section of Italian 
public opinion is not content to possess Valona, Pola, and 
some other strategic points, to secure Italy's supremacy in 
the Adriatic, but demands also the entire eastern coast 

* Declaration of Rizoff in the Outro, according to the Frankfurter 
Zeitung of May 19th, 1916. Article in the Mir, June 25th, 1916/ 

131 



132 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

of that sea and a broad band of hinterland as well. The 
great Russian Empire, with its 170 millions of inhabitants, 
which does not possess any sure issue to the sea, asks only 
to have free and secure egress from the Black Sea, through 
which it breathes. This is a condition so vital for Russia, 
a right so legitimate and just, that all Russians claim it, 
from the Extreme Imperialist Right to the Democratic and 
Socialist Extreme Left. Nevertheless, no part of Russian 
political opinion has ever put forth pretensions to the 
western coast of the Black Sea nor to the occupation of a 
position in the Balkans, as the anti-Russian campaign 
in Bulgaria supposes, in the case of the arrival of the 
Russians on the Straits. The Bulgarian campaign against 
the establishing of Russia on the Dardanelles lacks, 
therefore, real and serious foundations, and the interest 
of the whole question is diminished thereby. We shall 
content ourselves then, having already quoted a good many 
Bulgarian speeches and writings, by reproducing here only 
a few. 

The Narodni Prava (March 16th and 17th, 1916) tries to 
prove that the whole policy of Russia tends to weaken Bulgaria 
in order that the Russians " may advance on Constantinople 
without hindrance." In its issue of April 6th, 1916, the 
Narodni Prava, although a Conservative organ, praises the 
anti-Russian campaign of the Roumanian Socialist leader, 
Rakovski*, and finishes an article headed " Our Hostility 
to Russian Monarchism " as follows : 

" Even children know that for centuries the object of Russian 
policy has been to take Constantinople, or more precisely, the 
Straits ; that for this she has waged a series of wars, and that 
it is for the same purpose that she is making the present war. 
That is the reason why we feel, we intellectuals above all, great 
hostility to Russian monarchism." 

In a conversation with Lederer, correspondent of the 
Berliner Tageblatt (April 20th, 1916), the Bulgarian repre- 
sentative in Roumania, Radeff, affirmed that the chief 

* An interesting polemic arose between the Mir, the organ of the 
Nationalists, and the Rabotnitchesky Vcstnik, the organ of the Extreme 
Socialists, on the subject of the Roumanian Socialist, Krsta Rakovski, 
who is of Bulgarian origin. The Mir asserted that Rakovski had been 
arrested because, in the autumn of 1916, he gave vent to Bulgarophii 
sentiments, as he had done in 1912, and it attacked the Roumanian 
Socialists, who did not defend their comrade. Throughout the affair 
it is interesting to note that the Chauvinist Bulgarian Nationalists took 
a more conspicuous part than the Socialists in the defence of the Roumanian 
Socialist, Rakovski. 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE RUSSIANS 133 

reason for the adhesion of Bulgaria to the Central Powers 
was the necessity of keeping Russia away from the 
Dardanelles. He made the same statement almost in the 
same terms to the correspondent of the A z Est (April 30th, 
1916). 

The Narodni Prava of July 30th, 1916, wrote : 

" The most mediocre student of history is not ignorant of 
the historic fact that Russia declared and waged ' the war of 
liberation,' not for the cause of Slavism, nor for that of Ortho- 
doxy, nor for our freedom, but to obtain the Dardanelles. It 
is true, she was deceived in that war ; she was not able to take 
either the Dardanelles or ' liberated ' Bulgaria. The Dardanelles 
remained Turkish, and Bulgaria has freed herself from her 
deliverer." 

The Kambana of August 31st stated : 

" For us Bulgarians. Russia has been for centuries a dangerous 
bear. To remove the Russian peril, it is not enough to deliver 
Poland from her yoke, to take from her the Baltic provinces, 
to beat her in Galicia and Volhynia, she must be forced to give 
up the idea of the conquest of the Straits. She must be constrained 
to think no more of conquests m Europe, but of her internal 
troubles. It is only then that the nations from Hamburg to 
Bagdad can develop in quietude, and that Europe will be 
secured against new catastrophes." 

The Zarl'a wrote on September 28th, 1916, under the 
heading " Russia Does Not Conceal her Desire to Take the 
Straits and Constantinople " : 

" But the realisation of these Russian fantasies would have 
as a consequence the end of Turkey and a diminution of Bulgarian 
independence ; it would deal a heavy blow at German en- 
deavours TO ENSURE FREE DEVELOPMENT TO THE CENTRAL 

Powers." 

The conflicts in the Dobrudja led the Bulgarian press to 
repeat the same opinions. 

The Narodni Prava wrote on October 25th, 1916, in an 
article entitled " The Russian Defeat near Constanza " : 

" Near Tutrakan, Silistria, and Dobritch, the Bulgars con- 
sciously engaged in a struggle against the greatest danger which 
menaces them — the Russian attempt to seize the roads to the 
^Egean Sea. 

" The campaign in the Dobrudja is not only a conflict 
between Russo-Roumanian and Bulgarian armies, it is a strife 
between two opposing tendencies : on one side the effort of 
the Bulgarian nation to preserve its independence ; on the 

K 



134 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

other the Russian endeavour to obtain an outlet on the .Egean 
Sea, through Bulgaria, devastated and subjugated." 

And the organ of Gueshoff , and the Opposition, the Mir, 
declared on October 23rd, 1916 : 

" All the Dobrudja, the cradle of the first Bulgarian kingdom, 
will fall once more into our possession. Besides, the defeat of 
our enemies in the Dobrudja drives Rttssia far away, perhaps for 
ever, from her principal object — the conquest of Constantinople 
and the Straits. The3^ will ask in Russia : Why are we fighting 
still ? " 

And, lastly, this is what the Preporetz says, the organ 
of the Democrats, of whom Miliukov expects such marvels 
(November 6th, 1916) : 

" To-day, not only is Russia far from the road to the realisa- 
tion of her dreams, but she is much farther than she was before 
the signature of that convention (concerning the possession 
of the Straits). . . . The divulgation of the treaty concluded 
between England, France, and Russia will be useful. It will 
increase the unity of our forces, and will rouse the energy of 
our allies, the Turks, who will be more and more convinced 
that wherever they fight, in Galicia, in the Dobrudja, in Roumania 
or on our southern front, they are fighting for the defence of 
the Straits and Constantinople."* 

* * 
* 

The second reason for the anti-Russian tendency of 
Bulgarian policy is to be found in the Serbo-Bulgar question, 
the fundamental question of the Balkans. 

The Bulgarian attitude on this question springs from two 
different motives. One is direct and positive : the discon- 
tent which Russian Balkan policy excites in Bulgaria. 
The other is negative and indirect : it is the Bulgarian 
alliance with Austria-Hungary and the Central Powers in 

* The same motives for the anti-Russian policy of the Bulgars are 
revealed in the book written by Professor Bruckner (Die Slaven und der 
Weltkrieg. Lose Skizzen von Alexander Bruckner, Professor an der 
Universitat Berlin. Tubingen, 1916. Verlag J. C. Mohr). " In the 
eighteenth month of the world-war," says Bruckner, " taking sides with 
the Central Empires, the Bulgars attacked their Slav brethren, the Serbs. 
The action of Bulgaria signified the downfall of Serbia and the burial of 
Panslavism. That which, formerly, nobody, even in Bulgaria, thought 
possible, that the entire Bulgarian nation would turn against its liberator 
and protector, became a reality. Enmity towards Serbia, and the fear, or, 
more precisely, the certain prospect of being submerged as a vassal of 
Russia, in case the Black Sea became a Russian lake, left Bulgaria no 
choice. They forced her into open hostility against the grandson of her 
deliverer and godfather of her Crown Prince, and even drove her into 
an alliance with her hereditary mortal foe, Turkey." 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE RUSSIANS 135 

general. This indirect motive is perhaps the more important 
of the two. 

Bulgaria was not able to accept the Russian idea of a 
harmonious and equitable settlement of the Christian 
States in the Balkans because it did not respond to her 
dreams of hegemony. Nevertheless, this disagreement in 
aims did not hinder the conclusion of a compromise. The 
Bulgarians did not submit to Russian ideas, but the Russians 
conformed to Bulgarian ideas. Indeed, ever since the San 
Stefano project until quite recent years, Russia did not 
cease to do everything she could in order that Bulgaria 
might assume proportions which would assure for her, in 
fact, the hegemony of the Balkans. 

If, in spite of the subordination of Russian Balkan 
policy to Bulgarian conceptions, the Serbo-Bulgar question 
has become the cause of conflict between Bulgaria and 
Russia, it is because the second motive, the indirect one, 
has exercised its influence : the solidarity of Bulgaria with 
Austria-Hungary in Balkan politics has prevailed. 

In her weakness with regard to Bulgaria, Russia provided 
the latter with all the conditions of predominance over 
Serbia. But Austria-Hungary held up, not predominance 
only, but the prospect of the annihilation of Serbia. It 
was not in the nature of the Bulgarians, practical and free 
from romance and sentimentality, to hesitate.* From that 
moment the anti-Russian . policy of Bulgaria took on its 
true dimensions and real expansion. 

It is this motive — aim at the greatest gains — which is 
expressed exactly by the Bulgarian diplomatic representa- 
tives at Vienna and Berlin. 

* It should be noted here that the Bulgarians blame Russia for the 
treaty of Eucharest. The history of the second Balkan war is too well 
known to-day for anyone to try to hide the real culprit of the catastrophe 
of 1913, of which the treaty of Bucharest was only the inevitable result. 
Even Bulgarian public opinion does not conceal from itself the influence 
which Count Tarnowski exercised in the spring and summer of 1913 on 
Bulgarian politicians, " whose eyes he opened " as to the injury inflicted 
on Bulgaria by the Serbian Alliance. The Bulgarians, in resenting the 
treaty of Bucharest, forget its history. If the offensive intentions of 
Bulgaria against Serbia had not existed, the Serbo-Greco-Roumanian 
defensive combination would not have come about. In what could 
Russia have been at fault ? Perhaps because, before the Bulgarian 
attack on Serbia, she had not forced the latter to yield to the Bulgarian 
demands, and because, even after the issue of the attack, disastrous 
for the Bulgars, she did not endeavour to make the victim of the attack 
bear the consequences of the crime of the aggressor ? 

After all, could Russia have succeeded in giving a happier solution 
to the conflict, when Sofia was acting under the advice and instructions 
of Vienna ? 



136 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Frankfurter Zeitung of January 28th reproduces the 
conversation of the Bulgarian Envoy Rizoff with one of 
the staff of the Tagliche Rundschau. Rizoff expresses the 
great gratitude of the Bulgarian people to the Emperor 
William for having made a present to Bulgaria of all the 
spoils of war taken in Serbia. He adds : " Now it may be 
asserted with certitude that the attitude of Bulgaria 
towards the Central Powers has assumed a stable character. 
The political relations of Bulgaria with Russia are definitely 
broken off, even by those parties which were formerly 
Russophil." 

The Mir of June 28th, 1916, publishes an interview with 
the Bulgarian Minister at Vienna, Totcheff : 

" As for us Bulgars, we have joined the alliance of the 
Central Powers, fully conscious of what we are doing, and 
convinced that right and justice are on their side, and that 
the final victoiy, which responds to the interests of our nation, 
will be on their side also." 

The leader of the National Party (opposition), Gueshoff, 
declared to the correspondent of the Vossische Zeitung 
(issue of February 13th, 1916) that his party " supported 
Russia solely because it believed in Russian power ; but the 
opinion of Radoslavoff having shown itself to be more 
sound, it only remains to Bulgarian politicians to bow before 
existing conditions." 

The writer Brchlian, in an article on Russo-Bulgarian 
relations in the Dnevnik of August 15th, 1916, said : 

" We are bound to Russia by gratitude for our liberation, 
but we are separated from her by her Balkan policy. We are 
attached to Austria-Hungary and Germany by the common 
interest we have in keeping open the road to Asia Minor. The 
question is reduced to a simple calculation which leaves a balance 
against Russia." 

* 

The whole world is a witness to the ingratitude of Bul- 
garia towards Russia, but all the world does not know that, 
thanks to an astounding paradox, Bulgarian cynicism has 
raised that ingratitude to the altitude of a virtue. It is 
constantly repeated in the Bulgarian press that it would 
be madness to insist on Bulgaria shaping her policy on the 
duty of gratitude. But all do not stop at that unscrupulous 
materialism. Some assert that Russia freed Bulgaria 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE RUSSIANS 137 

solely in order to profit thereby. Others go so far as to 
deny that the liberation of Bulgaria was the work -of 
Russia. 

The Echo de Bulgarie, in its issue of October 17th, 1916, 
said : 

" Foreign nations are wrong in thinking that Bulgaria 
was called to autonomous life exclusively by the will of Russia. 
When the armies of the Czar crossed the Danube they found 
a nation already formed, a people fitted for independent exist- 
ence. And the proof of it lies in the fact that this people has 
known how to defend its independence, precisely, against the 
invading appetites of Russia." 

And the Narodni Prava wrote on the same date : 
" Over Bulgaria there is neither Russia nor Slavism, but 
only the vital interests of the Bulgars. . . . Russia has shed 
her blood in order to plant her heel on the Bulgarian effort 
towards independence. Is that a title to gratitude ? " 

In contesting the right of Russia to Bulgarian gratitude, 
the Sofia press surpasses itself when it affirms that, even 
in designing the Great Bulgaria of San Stefano, Russia 
had only her own interests in view, and that it is a real 
piece of good fortune for Bulgaria that the realisation of 
the San Stefano project was hindered by the opposition of 
Germany. This monstrous paradox is developed in two 
issues of the Government organ, Narodni Prava. 

On the occasion of the visit of King Ferdinand to Germany 
and Austria, the Narodni Prava of February 15th, 1916, 
published an article under the title " Bulgaria Delivered 
and Free." Here is a passage from it : 

" The real deliverance and the liberation of our country 
dates from the moment she became the ally of the mighty and 
victorious Central Empires, which at the Congress of Berlin, 
when Bulgaria was created, played so important a part. It 
was then, when Bismarck, in rejecting the project of Gortchakoff, 
inflicted a defeat on the Russian policy of conquest, which 
aimed, by the creation of the Bulgaria of San Stefano, at Con- 
stantinople and the Straits, under the pretext of delivering 
the Bulgars. If Russian diplomacy had succeeded in making 
its project accepted, Russia would have acquired the power 
necessary to transform the new State of Bulgaria into a Russian 
province. Independent Bulgaria lived again at the Congress 
of Berlin, thanks to the defeat inflicted by Bismarck on Russian 
diplomacy. It is true that Bulgaria was not restored in its 
integrity at the Berlin Congress, but that was because the 
policy which saved her from Russian strangulation required it ; 



138 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

but the indispensable nucleus was formed none the less, and 
the detached limbs were destined to join in a near future. It 
was at Berlin that was posed the basis of real Bulgarian inde- 
pendence and autonomy." 

In the issue of Septemben 8th the Narodni Prava 
wrote: 

" The creation of the Bulgaria of San Stefano was projected, 
not by the Bulgarophil Count Ignatieff, but by the Russian 
capitalist class. Space had to be found for Russian Imperialism 
on the back of the San Stefano Bulgaria which would have 
extended to the iEgean. However, at Berlin, England opposed 
it in the most vigorous fashion, and Russian Imperialism was 
fain to content itself with a province bounded by the Stara 
Planina (Balkan range) ; that was to be the first step in the 
invasion of the Balkans. The legend that Russia freed us, that 
she took thought for us, and that, in consequence, Bulgaria 
must not brandish her sword over her, will remain only an 
interesting document for future historians. 

"It is fortunate for the Bulgarian people that a legend 
which was a serious menace for its future has been destroyed. 
Bulgaria can breathe freely. The nightmare which might 
have strangled her has disappeared." 

* * 
* 

With such arguments and such a standard of morality, 
the Bulgarian press has brought to bear but little tact and 
less scruples on the examination of other questions apper- 
taining to the anti-Russian campaign. 

In order to manifest their attachment to the Germans, 
their true liberators (from the " dangerous creation " of 
the Bulgaria of San Stefano), the Bulgars have sought 
diligently to demonstrate scientifically that they are not 
Slavs. 

The Vice-President of the Sobranie, Momtchiloff , declared 
in an interview published by the Vossische Zeitung of Febru- 
ary 13th, 1916, that "the Russians are more dangerous 
than the Turks from whom they have delivered Bulgaria." 
With such an attitude of mind, it is not astonishing that 
the friends of Momtchiloff, who are in power, maintain 
that every act against Russia is salutary, and that any 
aid against her, no matter whence it comes, is welcome. 
The same notions are entertained by the Government 
organ, Narodni Prava, of April 15th, 1915. The Narodni 
Prava is opposed not only to Russia gaining the open sea, 
but goes so far as to preach a regular crusade against her. 
It says, notably, that " the maintenance of the independence 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE RUSSIANS 139 

of the Bulgarian State is possible only by sincere union and 
common effort with every international factor hostile to 
Russia." 

The anti-Russian campaign reached its zenith in the 
well-known scandal of the re-naming of the Church of St. 
Alexander Newsky at Sofia. This event served as a pretext 
for Radoslavoff to make a speech which was para- 
phrased by the Government press in the same scandalous 
fashion. 

A Hungarian journalist, Adoiian, editor of the Az Est, 
admired greatly these manifestations of Bulgarian ingrati- 
tude. In the issue of April 20th, 1916, he published a 
long letter from Sofia explaining the proposal of Radoslavoff 
to re-baptise the new cathedral (dedicated in the name of 
Saint Alexander Newsky ; it was to change this name for 
that of the two national Bulgarian saints, Cyril and Metho- 
dius). 

" This proposal has a greater significance than appears. 
The church was erected, thanks, above all, to Russian subscrip- 
tions ; it was built by Russian architects and decorated by 
Russian artists. It was intended to symbolise the bond of 
piety linking Bulgaria to Russia, like the monument reared 
to the memory of Alexander II. in front of the Sobranie. To 
those who essayed to defend the Russian name of the church, 
Radoslavoff replied in acid tones : ' We do not need to venerate 
this blood-stained Russian saint. . . .' In the alteration of 
the calendar, the discussion turned above all on the fact that 
Bulgaria would thus afford a new proof of her rupture with 
the East. Bulgarian holy days will no longer coincide with 
those of the Russians. This is very important."* 

The manifestations of emancipation from Russia, the 
descriptions of the situation in the great Slav Empire, and 
the campaign against the last vestiges of Russian influence 
in Bulgaria, were always endued with unheard-of stupidity. 
The Minister of Public Works, Petkoff, leader of the Stam- 
bouloff party, emphasises in the Berliner Tageblatt of 
December 27th, 1915, the satisfaction of the Bulgars " at 
having been freed from such uncertain historical sugges- 
tions." The Bulgarian press habitually discusses Russian 
politics in the same fashion as the internal politics of 
Bulgaria ; everything is reduced to personal matters. When 
Russia is mentioned it is only to retail the scandals of the 

* The reform of the calendar was decided on in principle in January 
1916. It was put in force in April 1916. 



140 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

first days of chaos which reigned in the newly born Bulgaria, 
and the Russian people are made responsible for the intrigues 
and conspiracies of those first ten years of life of the Bulgarian 
State, during which no name, whether Russian or Bulgarian, 
escaped reproach. 

From such a narrow outlook, inspired by hatred and 
copying the most ignominious pages of the Austro-Hungarian 
press, the organs of the Bulgarian Government write con- 
cerning Russia. Commenting on the last great Russian 
offensive, the Narodni Prava of July 16th, 1916, reiterates 
" famine and death reign unchecked in the Russian Empire. 
It is all suffering and misery." The Mir, as we have seen, 
states that the situation in Russia is desperate, and that 
her renewed efforts are ridiculous, seeing that " she is 
finally repulsed from Constantinople." 

The Narodni Prava exults over the Russian failure : 

" Instead of occupying Constantinople, Russia has lost the 
whole of Poland, and instead of getting out into the Mediter- 
ranean, she is stuck fast in the Mazurian mud. . . . Russia 
must renounce Constantinople, the Mediterranean, and the 
Balkans." (July 23rd, 1916.) 

The fall of Plevna is certainly one of the greatest Russo- 
Bulgarian events. But in celebrating the anniversary, 
the Mayor of Plevna could not abstain from insulting Russia 
in the official despatch addressed to King Ferdinand. 
(Berliner Tageblatt, December 16th, 1915.) 

The Kambana of September 8th, 1916, does not lay aside 
the usual tone in gloating with wild joy over the Dobrudja 
victory : 

" Russian soldiers under the knife of the Bulgarian heroes 
begged for their lives, crying : ' We are brothers ; we are 
kindred. . . . Mercy ! ' The Bulgar was never so proud as 
when he saw on his knees before him the arrogant and cowardly 
' protector ' of yesterday, the criminal neighbour, the hereditary 
foe." 

All the psychology of the parvenu Bulgar is displayed 
in this triumph of the former slave, thirsty for blood, trans- 
ported with joy at being able, in his turn, to trample on 
someone nobler than himself. 

Bulgarian hatred comes out with the same coarseness 
on another occasion, also in relation to the fighting in the 
Dobrudja. Professor M. Gheorgieff wrote in the Neue Freie 
Presse of September 17th, 1916 : 

" This victory has destroyed the greatest of all the legends 



THE BULGARS AGAINST THE RUSSIANS 141 

whose traces still subsist partially in Bulgaria, that of liberation 
by the Russians. This fable has been entirely dispersed and 
extinguished. Only one vestige remains, that on the square 
of the Sobranie, in whose corridors the question is often asked : 
' What is the use here still of the monument of the Emperor 
Liberator ? ' " 

And the Narodni Prava of September 26th, 1916, as a 
reminder of the meeting between the Emperor Nicholas 
and King Charles at Constanza, proposed to erect on the 
spot " a monument of shame of which the pedestal 
would have the form of a hen's head and a bottle of 
vodka — symbols of Wallachian savagery and Russian 
sottishness." 

Let it be said, moreover, that the Bulgarian journals 
are busied very seriously in bringing about the extirpation 
of the last Russian souvenirs remaining at Sofia. 

The Dnevnik of September . 4th, 1916, wrote : 

" The greatest shame and insult to which we could expose 
national sentiment is to allow the broadest boulevards, the 
finest streets, and the most spacious squares of our capital to 
bear still the names of Dondukof, of Czar Liberator, of Ignatieff, 
of Stoletoff, and Parensoff. . . ." 

And the Balkanska Pochta stated in its issue of Novem- 
ber 1st, 1916, that portraits and other Russian pictures 
still existed in sundry small restaurants and hairdressers' 
saloons. The journal did not return to the charge. After 
such a warning the Sofia police must have redoubled their 
patriotic zeal. 

The Narodni Prava of September 12th, 1916, reminding 
the clergy, too, of their duty in this clearance of Russian 
souvenirs, said : 

" Our meaning is very clear. Every Bulgar, no matte 
whence he comes nor what he is, ought to forget, the Russian 
name." 

Every Russian souvenir has long been proscribed in 
Bulgaria. That land, strewn with Russian graves and 
watered with the blood of the heroes of Plevna and Shipka, 
was trodden more than once by renegades, and the ungrateful 
.... Bulgars take pride in having abolished with their 
own hands " the great Russian legend." And, notwith- 
standing, that old mother, that matoushka, crabbed, encum- 
bering as she may have seemed, or really was at times, for 
her spoiled children, has she not always been the same as 
that evoked by Richepin in his song " La Glu " ? 



142 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

To satisfy the caprices of his mistress, a youth sacrifices 
to her the heart of his mother. And in spite of this infa- 
mous crime, the bleeding heart addresses the matricide, lying 
on the ground, in these sublime words of love : " Have you 
hurt yourself, my child ? " The ungrateful son of Russia 
has done her much harm, without heeding the harm he 
has done himself. 



CHAPTER XII 

THE BULGARS AND NEW RUSSIA 

To explain their distrust of Russia, the Russophobe Bulgars 
based their argument on the " Russian peril " or " the 
Imperialist tendencies of Tsarism." Although enounced 
by the most reactionary parties in Bulgaria, this line of 
reasoning for the Russophobe campaign was taken into 
consideration in Russia. Russian Liberals invoked it 
always in their criticisms of the Balkan policy of the old 
Russian regime. 

Seeking the share of blame in Russian diplomacy for 
the schism between Bulgaria and her old protectress, 
Russian Liberals carried magnanimity to the point of 
entirely releasing Bulgarian responsibility. The manner 
in which the Bulgars — Russophils as well as Russophobes — 
met these generous advances showed how hypocritical 
were the complaints against Russia, and to what point 
Bulgarian Russophobia aimed — beyond her Governments — 
at Russia herself, the Russia of to-day as well as of yesterday. 

In his speech on March 24th, 1916, Miliukoff described 
to the Duma the situation in the Balkans and the part 
played by Russian diplomacy in Bulgarian intervention. 
The Bulgarian press published the speech at full length, 
and gave it a favourable reception in so far as it acknow- 
ledged that it was mainly the fault of Russian diplomacy 
that Bulgaria and Russia were at war (Mir, April 12th, 
1916) and that Sazonov and others like him were culpable 
(Narodni Prava, April 14th, 1916). The Government 
press, nevertheless, thought it proper to disapprove the 
political tendency of the speech as being quite as dangerous 
for Bulgaria as " the open hostility of Sazonov." 

" The declarations of Miliukoff concerning reparation for 
the injustice done to Bulgaria," wrote the Narodni Prava of 
April nth, 1916, " are hollow phrases which will never destroy 

143 



144 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the fundamental tendency of the Balkan policy of Russia, which 
is to reach the Dardanelles and the iEgean Sea across Roumania 
and Bulgaria. Miliukoff himself, if he were at the helm, would 
drive over Bulgaria in order that Russia might attain the open 
sea which Miliukoff claims as much as the others. The differ- 
ence might be that Miliukoff would act with greater cunning. 
He would fool Bulgaria by the acquisition of Macedonia in 
order to be able to take Constantinople, and afterwards, by the 
force of natural evolution — through which the stronger over- 
comes the weaker — Miliukoff would find it quite right that 
Russia should also lay hands on Bulgaria and Macedonia." 

The Bulgarian opposition press made use of Miliukoff's 
speech to express more clearly the notion that Bulgaria, 
whilst continuing her alliance with the Central Powers, 
ought to reserve for herself a way to enable her to renew 
her relations with Russia after the war, on the basis, be it 
understood, of the acceptance of Bulgarian conquests in 
Macedonia and in the Serbian provinces of the Morava. 
Such an arrangement, whilst preserving for Bulgaria her 
booty, would bring into power the opposition parties of 
Gueshoff and Malinoff. 

The Mir of April 12th, 1916, wrote : 

" We do not share the opinion of those who think that 
Russia will always follow the same direction. . . . Still less 
founded is the assertion that after the war, when a stable and 
indispensable peace is established, we can remain allies and 
friends of Germany without being at daggers drawn with Russia. 
Who can be sure that to-morrow Germany and Russia will 
not shake hands and be friends ? . . . And then, even if we 
remained in permanent alliance with Germany, M'e should be 
all the more the gainers if, parallel with that alliance, good 
relations were established between us and Russia. Our policy 
ought to endeavour alwaj^s, whatever our alliances, to acquire 
among the States not allied the largest number of friends. A 
multitude of friends is never a misfortune for a nation. 

" For us Bulgars Miliukoff's speech is instructive from 
another point of view. He stops short of the action of those 
who throw all the blame on Bulgaria and her leaders. The 
conscience of those who consider that our present relations 
with Russia are not natural will be quieted when they recognise 
that the responsibility for the war between liberator and liberated 
falls chiefly on the Russians and on their diplomacy, and that the 
actual state of affairs is the fruit of erroneous Russian con- 
ceptions concerning the Balkan peoples and their psychology. 
The Bulgarians can but rejoice when Russia acknowledges her 
mistakes. The contrary would not be natural : that just at the 
time when the Russians acknowledge their errors there should be 



THE BULGARS AND NEW RUSSIA 145 

found Bulgars willing to charge Bulgaria with the responsibility 
for the existing relations with Russia." 

The Preporetz, the organ of Malinoff, wrote in the same 
strain. 

The Narodni Prava of April 16th, in an article entitled 
f< The Russian Idol and its Worshippers in Bulgaria," 
replied at length to the article in the Mir. A noteworthy 
passage is as follows : 

" Miliukoff uses his friends and admirers in Bulgaria to 
serve his political ends and those of his party in Russia. . . . 
Miliukoff wishes it to be thought that he would have taken 
another stand with regard to the Bulgarian demands if he had 
been in the place of Sazonov : he would have satisfied them, 
and would have directed, with the aid of Bulgaria, the course 
of the war in favour of Russia. This opinion appears to us 
both audacious and unjustified. . . . The oriental policy of 
Russia tends to the domination of the Balkans, the Straits, 
and Asia Minor. Too many people, differing widely in their 
individual qualities and temperament, have succeeded to the 
government of Bulgaria ; Russian foreign policy on its side 
has appeared sometimes frankly reactionary, sometimes liberal, 
and ' liberatrice,' according to the tastes and ideas of the prin- 
cipal factors, but, in its essence, it has always preserved its 
character of brutal conquest." 

N. Mitakoff wrote in the same sense in the Narodni Prava 
of April 14th, 19 16. He terminated his article by an appeal 
to the Bulgarian opposition : 

" Rejoice at the avowal of Miliukoff that the Sazonovs are 
guilty of the war between Bulgaria and Russia, but conform 
nevertheless to the policy of Radoslavoff . ' Father ' Rado- 
slavoft will teach you that an abyss exists between Great Bulgaria 
and immense Russia, and that the Bulgars henceforth have only 
one way to Petrograd, that which passes through Berlin." 

The deputy D. Blago'ieff, leader of the Orthodox Socialists, 
published on the same topic in the Rabotnitcheski Vestnik 
of April 21st an article on the " Future of the Balkans " : 

" The domination of Constantinople and the Straits includes 
also the domination of Bulgaria. There are, however, in 
Bulgaria parties who imagine that if Russian policy towards 
Bulgaria has been bad, it is because reactionaries like Sazonov 
have had the direction of it ; they believe that this policy 
would cease to be dangerous if Professor Miliukoff, the well- 
known friend of the Bulgars and the leader of Russian Liberals, 
were to guide it. These opinions have been ventilated recently 
in the Mir and Preporetz. They are as dangerous as they are 
baseless. Liberal and bourgeois Russia, with Miliukoff as leader, 



146 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

is yet more dangerous for the Balkans and Bulgaria than reactionary 
Russia." 

The semi-official Narodni Prava published with much 
satisfaction the article of the Socialist deputy, which, after 
all, is but a repetition of the opinions already emitted by 
the Narodni Prava on the occasion of Miliukoff's speech. 

Once again, on June 15th, 1916, the Narodni Prava, 
commenting on a book which appeared in Russia entitled 
" What Russia Hopes from this War," and containing the 
ideas of Miliukoff and other politicians, wrote : 

" This is what Russia desires — democratic arid progressive 
Russia. Comment is superfluous. Russia wishes to take the 
Straits, Constantinople, including Adrianople, and the coasts 
of the Black Sea, indispensable for the security of her possessions. 
She wishes, as the former President of the Council, Goremykine, 
stated publicly last year in the Duma, the Black Sea to become 
a Russian lake. These are also the aims of Miliukoff, that 
same Miliukoff who, having been persecuted by her, found with 
us not only asylum, but also a fraternal welcome." 

Throughout the whole of this discussion between the 
Russophobes of the Governmental parties and the remainder 
of the soi-disant Russophils in the opposition, not a single 
voice was raised in unison with that of the greatest Bulgaro- 
phil of Russia. The Mir approved of that portion of 
Miliukoff's speech which accused Russia and justified 
Bulgaria. The Mir of Gueshoff was distinguishable from 
the Narodni Prava of Radoslavoff , which preached a crusade 
against Russia, only by the cautious reservations it advo- 
cated in view of the future. Why, it said, should Bulgaria 
remain continually at enmity with Russia, even when her 
spoils in the East are assured to her, and although Russia 
should be repulsed from the Dardanelles once for all ? 
As touching this latter question, vital to Russia amid all 
her Balkan compromises, the Bulgarians did not share her 
point of view. The friends of Miliukoff at Sofia did not 
defend him. When we say friends, we do not mean the 
group around the Mir, the Conservative organ of Gueshoff 
and Todoroff, whose " sympathy " for Russia only caused 
embarrassment to Miliukoff, and whose ideas did not coincide 
with his, notwithstanding the ties of personal friendship. 
The Preporetz, Democratic, and the organ of the closest 
personal and political friends of Miliukoff, was not more 
earnest than the others in the propaganda of friendship 
with Russia. 



THE BULGARS AND NEW RUSSIA 147 

The Narodni Prava of Radoslavoff, which, in attacking 
French democracy, habitually made use of the barrack- 
room opinions of Prussian professors,, often paraphrased 
the doctrines of the German Marxists. In the issue of 
May 16th, 1916, it wrote : 

" Russia must be vanquished. Once for all, the pillar of 
reaction in Europe must be uprooted. The progress of Europe 
and of humanity demands it. Our national interests demand 
it also. We must fight to the death, as Frederick Engels has 
said, against monarchist Russia and against her allies, whoever 
they may be." 

In the Preporetz of September 28th and 29th, Yordan 
Maryanpolski treats of Russian democracy. He analyses 
and criticises the following documents : a letter of Prince 
Kropotkin to Gustav Stephen, author of a book in Swedish 
on war and civilisation ; an article of Professor Vinogradoff 
in the Times ; the declarations of Miliukoff in the Man- 
chester Guardian ; and those of Bourtzev in the organ of 
the Swedish Social Democratic Party. 

" The reading of these documents," says the Bulgarian 
critic, " leaves§[us amazed at the narrow Chauvinism which 
has seized on personages highly enlightened, and of deserved 
merit for their contributions to democratic science in Russia. 
These Russian authors, of whom two enjoy a great reputation 
as historians, are in open conflict with truth, and judge Germanv, 
after the manner of journalists, to be a State dangerous to European 
civilisation. The war was provoked by French designs to 
retake Alsace-Lorraine, and those of Russia to conquer Con- 
stantinople. As for Germany's policy of conquest, it may be 
affirmed that English and French policy ■ bears a deeper, imprint 
of the spirit of conquest, and is, at the same time, far more barbarous. 
Professor Miliukoff believes that Russia, the oppressor of so 
many peoples, like the Poles, the Little-Russians, the Jews, 
and many others, will bring happiness to the peoples of Austro- 
Hungary when she remodels that Empire, the only one among 
the Great Powers of Europe which makes allowance for the 
character of the small peoples, and leaves them the liberty 
necessary for their development. Bourtzev esteems the work 
of the Russian Tsar to be good, and invites revolutionaries to 
support him in ruining Germany, whose sacrifices, purity of 
manners, material and moral well-being and development of civilisa- 
tion far surpass those of France and England. 

Maryanpolski shows further that the Russian democratic 
leaders believe that if the war ends favourably for Russia, it 
will bring an increase of political liberties, and strengthen 
democracy. On the contrary, he says, only a Russian defeat 



148 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

can bring democratic reforms to Russia. In conclusion, he 
asserts that Russian democracy, and with it the section of social 
democrats which supports the Government in the war, betray 
progressive ideas. " We Bulgarians who, through the fault of 
Russian governmental circles, have been led to make war on 
our liberators, have only one means of paying our debt of grati- 
tude to our teachers and benefactors, and that is to spare no 
effort to defeat the Russian forces on the battlefield. Thus, not 
only do we render service to our own country in assuring it 
full liberty, but we render also a great service to the real Russian 
democracy, which will thus acquire strength to settle accounts 
with absolutism broken by defeat." 

We see that Austro-Hungarian and Prussian " democratic 
principles " have schooled Bulgaria. The democratic party 
expresses itself in the same way as the Governmental 
Narodni Prava, in which Dimitri Rizoff, Bulgarian Minister 
at Berlin, once declared that " Russia must be beaten in 
her own interests." 

Bulgarian democracy sees, then, the future of its country 
and of democracy in the downfall of Russia with all its 
consequences ; the downfall of the liberal West, and the 
triumph of the " Junker " press, the Apostolic monarchy 
of the Habsburgs, the Turkish Sultanate and — it is also 
true — of the Coburg Balkan Empire. But this last result 
alone would have sufficed the practical Bulgarian mind, 
under the labels of all sorts of ideals, to subordinate morals, 
logic, Slavism, democracy, to the question of Bulgarian 
gain. 



The Russian revolution has been the surest touch- 
stone of Bulgarian Russophil and democratic sentiments. 

The manifestations evoked by that event follow each 
other chronologically, in two stages, the first expressing 
opinions, the second political combinations. 

The first vague news of the revolution — risings and dis- 
order at Petrograd — provoked only the selfish thought ; 
an enemy hors de combat, paralysed by internal troubles, 
and therefore the possibility of dealing a blow at enemies 
still on their feet. 

This is the language of the Bulgarian press during this 
first period. 

The Socialist Narod (March 15th) is the first to express 
this thought : " This means that Russian national defence 
is compromised." The Kanibana (March 16th) repeats it : 



THE BULGARS AND NEW RUSSIA 149 

" The Russian revolution brings with it an internal weaken- 
ing of Russia." The Narodni Prava (March 16th) finds that 
" everybody sees in it the approach of the end of the war. 
The gulf between the monarchists and the revolutionaries 
is vast, the struggle will be carried into the ranks of the 
army. A few days only will reveal the attitude of France, 
England and Italy, menaced by the might of Germany." 
The following day (March 17th) the Narodni Prava " would 
not be astonished to learn that the Russian Army had 
separated into two hostile camps. . . . When once the 
Russian Army has laid down its arms before the outside 
enemy, occupied as it is with internal affairs, the possibility 
will arise of dealing powerful blows at the other countries of 
the Entente." The Narodni Prava concluded tljat " no 
one was any longer capable of averting the imminent 
destruction of Russia." The Dnevnik, of the same date, 
states that for the moment " one thing is, however, positive, 
that so long as the internal situation does not improve, 
Russia is out of the war as a decisive force." The Kambana 
of March 17th said that " the war and internal reforms are 
incompatible." The Narod, of the same date, is of opinion 
that " the revolutionaries will understand that the hope of 
victory is irrevocably lost, and that all that remains to do 
is to busy themselves with the question of peace." The 
Minister Bakaloff foresees " disorder and lack of organisa- 
tion, the dissolution of government," and opines that " the 
events in Russia, as a revolutionary act, are in favour of 
Bulgaria and the Central Alliance." The fact that the 
reactionaries have not been able to succour the Emperor 
shows that Russia is vanquished " (Kambana, March 19th). 
The Mir (March 20th) judges that " the Russian revolution 
cannot be considered as strengthening the Entente for the 
continuing of the war. On the contrary, the revolution is 
a fundamental weakening." The Kambana (March 20th) 
places all its hopes on " this process, which will continue." 
The Dnevnik (March 21st) believes that " the Russian 
revolution will hasten peace, even if its leaders declare 
against it." The Echo de Bidgarie thinks that the Con- 
stantinople question has no longer any interest for the 
people, "who only want bread and their sons." The Mir 
(March 23rd) already sees " the revolution moving towards 
its logical development — peace." 

The speeches in the Bulgarian Parliament only repeated 
the same ideas. 



150 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Before the declarations on the subject by the President 
of the Council, Radoslavoff — declarations published by 
the enemy telegraphic agencies — the Bulgarian Democratic 
Party desired, it seems, to manifest its feelings in a more 
explicit manner. The chief Democrat, Malinoff, seems to 
have made a great speech on March 19th at the Sobranie 
which the Bulgarian newspapers did not publish. Here, 
however, is what some of them said : 

Echo de Bulgarie (March 20th) : 

" Dwelling on the events in Russia, Malinoff remarked 
that they would not fail to exercise a happy influence in favour 
of peace. The Sobranie ought to welcome with joy the triumph 
of parliamentarism over reaction in Russia." 

The Mir (March 20th) : 

" Malinoff dwelt on the Russian revolution — an internal 
struggle for right and justice in which we had no business to 
meddle — and on the relations of the United States and China 
with Germany. Afterwards Malinoff spoke more in detail of 
our relations with the allies. We ought all to see that our 
relations with our allies were good, because no other State 
policy was possible now. Everything of a nature tending to 
injure good relations with our allies ought to be removed." 

The cessation of disorder at Petrograd and the Pro- 
visional Government, established and beginning to give 
proofs of direction, recalled the Bulgars to the necessity 
of reckoning seriously with the new condition of affairs in 
Russia. Selfish and malignant joy gave place to political 
combinations. They continued to affirm the incapacity of 
revolutionary Russia to carry on the war, the incompati- 
bility of the war aims of the old and the new Russia, and 
— taking a step forward in this order of ideas — they began 
to weigh the conditions favourable for the immediate 
guarantee of the vital interests of Russia " without war." 

Deceived in their hopes of seeing Russia disorganised 
and put out of action, they attempted to eliminate her from 
the struggle by specious advances. 

Here are echoes of Bulgarian public opinion during 
this second period : 

The Narodni Prava (March 23rd) asserts still that " the 
continuation of the war by Russia becomes problematic." 
The former Minister, Natchavitch, expects to see the Russian 
Army dislocated and famished, conditions of which the 
result will be a prompt peace (Kambana, March 28th). The 
Preporetz (March 22nd), analysing the dissensions of parties, 



THE BULGARS AND NEW RUSSIA 151 

foresees " struggles which will bring about complications 
in the interior and weakening on the front ..." And the 
following day the organ of the friends of Miliukoff openly 
broaches the idea of a separate peace with Russia. The 
Preporetz says : " She can have the open seas without 
war. ... A near future will tell us if those who now lead 
Russia have comprehended that, or if they are going to 
continue to fight for English and French aims, in spite of 
the exhaustion of their people." The Kambana, of the same 
date, inspired by the same sentiments, " salutes on the part 
of the Bulgars and their allies the pacifist Russian revolu- 
tion." 

The means are very simple. They are those that the 
Bulgarian Minister at Berlin, Rizoff, pointed out in the 
Berliner Tageblatt of April 4th, in which he foretells the 
reconciliation of the Russian and German nations. 

Miliukoff's declaration affirming the will of new demo- 
cratic Russia to keep her engagements as an ally in the great 
war against the Hohenzollern and Habsburg Empires, gave 
rise to disappointment and dissatisfaction at Sofia. The 
Dnevnik of April 12th expresses it thus : 

" We must not shut our eyes ; we have greeted democratic 
Russia cordially, but we ought to understand that new Russia 
cannot in any way be less Imperialist than old Russia. M. 
Miliukoff tells us so plainly." 

For want of anything better to do, the Bulgars continued 
to discuss the declarations of the provisional Russian 
Government, to make a pessimistic diagnosis of the internal 
changes in Russia, to base the same conjectures on this 
hypothesis, and to present the same offers of a separate 
peace. 

The Kambana of April 13th finds that " the policy of the 
Provisional Government is only palliative. The sick man 
is already on the operating table and the radical cure is 
in the scalpel of the revolution, which has not said its last 
word." The " last word " desired by the Kambana is the 
complete disintegration of a country into an anarchy 
which would force Russia to make a separate peace. The 
Outro, of the same date, says that " in the course of recon- 
noitring operations on the Stochod, the Austro-Hungarian 
troops had unmistakeable proofs that the moral of the 
Russian Army had sunk lower than ever." The Socialist 
journal, Narod, emphasises the incompatibility of the " two 
tendencies of the Russian revolution." The Voenni 



152 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Izvestia admits the guarantee of Bulgarian interests in the 
formula proclaimed by the Russian Provisional Govern- 
ment, but regrets that the Bulgars cannot profit by it, 
because " war questions cannot be detached one from 
another. The Bulgarian question is the programme of our 
allies, as their programme is a Bulgarian question. We have 
shaken hands to pursue our common work to the end."* 

Neither seeing nor comprehending anything outside 
their narrow and selfish interests, the Bulgars could not 
grasp the dimensions of the Russian event. From the 
extreme democratic Miliukophil Left (Malinoff) to the 
extreme reactionary Right (Radoslavoff), amid a torrent 
of phrases and declamation, they were able to express only 
one idea, conforming word for word with the declarations 
of Vienna and Berlin : separate peace with Russia. 

Thus Radoslavoff, the bitter Russophobe, the black re- 
actionary, the blind Germanomaniac, found himself — 
without renouncing his old opinions — in the year of grace 
1917, in the camp of worshippers of the Russian revolution, 
elbow to elbow with the democrat Malinoff. 

In this way the Bulgarian reply to the declaration of 
the Provisional Russian Government, paraphrased in the 
Narodni Prava (despatch of the Bulgarian Agency of 
April 22nd), voiced the feelings of the two opposite groups. 

The organ of Malinoff, Preporelz, had already made the 
suggestion that Russia could have the open sea without making 
war. Radoslavoff insinuated the possibility of an under- 
standing on the same conditions. " Could we not," asks the 
Narodni Prava, " come to an understanding with men 
who, as martyrs for the liberty of their fatherland, found a 
hospitable asylum in democratic Bulgaria? " The Narodni 
Prava does not forget to add that " the Bulgars are fighting 
only for their national unity, like their allies." 

Under the title " The End of a Prejudice," the Rabot- 
nitcheski Vestnik attacks Russophilism in Bulgaria, which it 
calls a political " prejudice." 

" In 1913, Russia, by creating the Balkan Alliance and 
profiting by the servility of the coalition of the Russophil 
parties, brought upon Bulgaria a real national catastrophe. 

* This sophistical interpretation of the declaration which proclaimed 
the rights of nationalities, to the profit of the Bulgars, appeared in the 
same column of the Izvestia in which the idea of liberating the nationalities 
in Austria from the Habsburg yoke was flouted, and in which indignation 
was expressed that the occupation of the Serbian provinces should be 
termed usurpation. 



THE BULGARS AND NEW RUSSIA 153 

" The Russian revolution," concludes the Rabotnitcheski 
Vestnik, " saps the foundation of the Bulgarian bourgeois 
parties, who imagine they are pursuing ' a great national policy ' 
through the support of the foreigner, whilst, in reality, they 
are the instruments of the foreigner's plans of conquest. The 
overthrow of Russian despotism has cut the last strands of 
this ' national ' policy, and thrown its agents on to the dunghill 
(sic). As to the Bulgarian and Balkan peoples, the Russian 
revolution opens to them brilliant prospects and broad ways, 
prospects of a near peace and a path to a democratic alliance." 

Nothing more natural than this language from the 
Socialist organ. But it is strange to find the Narodni 
Prava, the semi-official journal of Radoslavoff, identifying 
itself with the Socialist doctrinaires, who alone oppose on 
principle the Government policy. 

The Narodni Prava of April 25th reproduces the article 
of the Rabotnitcheski Vestnik, and adds : 

" In 1913 already our Russophils, in order to save the situa- 
tion and nourish our people on prejudices, spread the report 
that the Russian Tsar's regard for us had somewhat cooled, 
but that intellectual Russia was prepared to remove the mis- 
understanding. Miliukoff and his friends were disposed to 
save us. But it was only an old song sung to a new tune. What ! 
ought we to turn again to Russia ? When Miliukoff spoke of 
Constantinople and of Great Serbia our Russophils subsided 
completely. Was it for always ? Oh no ! It wanted only 
two words uttered by the new Russian r6gime in favour of 
peace for our Bulgarian Russophils to come out of their lair. . . . 
Still the old song for Russia. ..." 

The conclusion is plain : Autocratic or democratic, 
Russia remains the enemy of the Bulgars, so long as she 
does not renounce her pretensions to the Straits and her 
will to free and unite the Serbs, 

* * 
* 

Everywhere else, the Russian revolution was regarded 
as an historical event which might bring in its train con- 
sequences incalculable, and it was felt that its effects would 
be great and widespread. Bulgaria, whose interests in 
the direction taken by Russian politics was greater than 
those of any other country, and who invoked, among other 
motives for her intervention in the great war, her distrust 
of the Imperialism of the Tsars, treated it as of small 
consequence. Continuing the policy of distrust even 
towards democratic Russia, she had nothing to offer but 



154 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

hypocritical phrases of sympathy and impudent advice as to 
the best way to go in order to avoid clashing with Germano- 
Bulgarian interests. Malinoff, Gueshoff, and Radoslavoff, 
with one voice, invited new Russia to abandon her allies 
and to settle the vital question of an issue to the open sea 
by a compromise with her enemies. What Russia and the 
European democracy would gain by the capitulation of 
revolutionary Russia to absolutist Germany, with the 
defeat of the Entente and German domination from Hamburg 
to Bagdad assured, the Russophils of opportunity and 
the Democrats by adventure at Sofia do not say. But 
they perceive no other means of realising their hopes of a 
Great Bulgaria " Mittel-European " and omnipotent in the 
Balkans, and that is enough for them. 



CHAPTER XIII 

BULGARS AND SLAVS 

In witness of their boundless attachment to the Germans, 
the Bulgars have maintained in all things, and with all 
their might, their renunciation of the past. They deny 
gratitude to their liberators whilst rinding reasons for 
sympathy with their age-long oppressors ; they go so far 
as to renounce their ethnic character. They will be Slavs 
no longer, and they prove that they never were. 

At the invitation of the Germano-Bulgarian Society of 
Berlin, Professor Lieutenant of Reserve Panoff gave a 
lecture on April 28th, 1916, in the hall of the Prussian 
Parliament at Berlin, in the course of which he said : " The 
Bulgar is the man who is not enthusiastic for abstractions, 
but values only what is concrete and real. So the Bulgar 
is not of Slav race, for the Slav is given to fantastic ideals, 
while the Bulgar devotes himself only to matters of 
reality." [Frankfurter Zeitung, April 29th, 1916.) 

The organ of the Serbo-Croat coalition at Zaghreb, 
Hrvatska Rietch, of October 27th, 1916, commenting on 
Panoff's article in the German review Nord und Sud, which 
followed the lines of the lecture, says : 

" Panoff asserts that the Btdgars are the descendants of the 
ancient Huns, and that the Hungarians and Finns are their only 
relatives in Europe. 

" The Bulgars have kept until now the chief traits of the 
character and physical type of the Huns. The Slavs are 
dreamers, frank, unstable, lazy, without energy, whilst the 
Bulgars are cold, calm, laborious, and energetic. Up to the 
present three theories have been advanced concerning the 
ancestry of the Bulgars : (a) Slav descent ; (6) Finn-Uralian ; 
(c) Turco-tartar. It is possible that Panoff, in his comparison 
between Bulgars and Slavs, is right." 

Allies of the Germans in the great war, descendants of 
Alaric, the Bulgarians thought fit to acclaim as their ances- 
tor, Genghis-Khan. In this they had two ends in view : 

155 



156 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the renunciation of Slavism pleased the Germans ; the 
recognition of Turanian parentage attached them to the 
Hungarians and Turks. After all, this new ethnic staging 
only completed the repertory of comedies in which the 
Bulgars made the principle of nationality play the oddest 
roles.* 

The Turanian union was manifested in the most glowing 
way on the occasion of the visit of Bulgarian deputies to 
Buda-Pesth in May, 1916. Replying to the speech of Count 
Apponyi, Momtchiloff said, " We may seek for the harmony 
of feeling in the two peoples in the historic past and the 
common Turanian race." 

King Ferdinand, in reply to the welcome of the munici- 
pality of Buda-Pesth, spoke also of " the reciprocal senti- 
ment of relationship which binds two peoples of the same 
blood " (Az Ujsag, of May 27th, 1916). The director of 
Bulgarian statistics, Kiril Popoff, spoke of the " kinship of 
blood " to the correspondent of the Magyorarszag (June nth, 
io,r6). The variations on this theme are numberless. In a 
report of a sitting of the " Congress of Nationalities " at 
Lausanne on June 29th, 1916, the Journal de Geneve quotes 
the declaration of M. Antchura, who, in the name of the 
Tartars, pronounced a great eulogium of the Bulgars, the 
most civilised of the Tartar tribes. 

The Hungarian journal Alkoimany of August 16th, 1916, 
speaks of the great role fallen to Bulgaria, thanks to her 
geographical position on the high rorxl from west to east : 

" It is thus that this Finno-tartar-nomad people, thrown 
from the banks of the Volga on to the coast of the Black Sea, 
becomes a factor in world history. . . . With its admirable 
realism, which distinguishes it plainly from the ardent fancy 
of the Serb people, it has chosen the means to carve its way to 
independence and the hegemony of the Balkans." 

The Berliner Tageblatt of September 22nd, 19 16, publishes 
a report of the thirteenth East European Soiree (Georgian- 
Finn-Bulgar), organised on September 21st, at Berlin. The 
programme included numerous lectures. Dr. von Richter, 
former minister, received the guests representing the three 
kindred nations, Georgians, Finns, and Bulgars. The 

* The author has placed in evidence the arbitrary nature of all 
these theories of the Bulgars, who boast of their Tartar origin and at 
the same time base on ethnic reasons their pretensions to Macedonia 
recognised as Slav of the purest and oldest origin. (See " About Bulgaj 
Mimicry," by Dr. V. Kuhne. Tribune de Geni>ve, June 30th, 1916.) 



BULGARS AND SLAVS 157 

assistant director of the Bulgarian Press Bureau, Nikola 
Rizoff, spoke in the name of the Bulgars.* 

The Turanian manifestations of the Bulgars can only 
be considered as one more proof of the lack of a developed 
and enlightened national consciousness. 

But all these strayings of a people belated in its national 
formation, influenced by foreign ascendancy, misguided by 
an inauspicious policy, will not lead us into the error of 
regarding seriously the Turanianism of the Bulgars and their 
renunciation of Slavism. They are Slavs none the less. 
And if there is, on the Slav side, something with which to 
reproach them on this point, it is not so much their inept 
and braggart Turanianism when they deny their Slav 
parentage, as the selfish and mean way in which they exploit 
Slavism when they declare themselves Slavs of the first rank 
and the most noble stock. Allies of Austro-Hungary, the 
Bulgars have closed their eyes to the persecution of the 
Slavs under the monarchy. Their hypocrisy went so far 
as to find in the submission of the Slavs to obligatory 
military service in Austro-Hungary a proof of their sincere 
devotion to the Central Empires. They feign to know 
nothing of the massacres in Bosnia-Herzegovina, the persecu- 
tions of the Serbo-Croats in Dalmatia, Croatia and Slavonia, 
the devastations by Magyar soldiers in Syrmia, the trials 
for high treason which have never ceased in the Banat and 
Batchka during the war, the persecutions in Slovenia, the 
wholesale imprisonments in Bohemia, the hecatombs of 
Czech regiments, the Slovak martyrs in Hungary, f They 
have forgotten Hindenburg's speech at Mitava, in which 
he repeated the words of the Kaiser, " the Slav waves will 
roll no more " (Wiedenski Kurier Poljki, August 24th, 1916). 
The forced participation of the Slavs with the Austro- 
Germans sufficed the Sofia journals to assert that Slav 
interests had nothing to do with the struggle between 
Germans and Russians. 

* A passage from the report of the Berliner Tageblatt will give an 
idea of the duplicity of the Bulgars in their Turanian role. ■' Speaking 
of Bulgarian history, M. Rizoff stated that the Bulgarians have given 
the alphabet, language and literature to the Russians, Serbs, and Rou- 
manians." On one side the denial of Slavism, on the other the pretention 
of this Tartar-Slav patriot of the Balkans, according to which the Bulgars 
have given their idiom to 130,000,000 Russians and Serbs. That is the 
Bulgarian : he will renounce even his race, but will not give up any of 
his pretensions. 

f See " Those whose Martyrdom is Ignored," by Dr. V. Kuhne. 
(Geneva, 1917.) 



158 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Bulgarian press went still further in representing 
the Germans as the standard-bearers of true Slavism. 
German machinations with the proclamation of the so- 
called independent Poland delighted the Bulgars, who 
appreciated it as a trump card of clever knavery. Their 
manifestations on the occasion of the proclamation of 
" independent Poland,"* under the sceptre of William II., 
completely denuded Bulgarian egoism of its Slav and 
humanitarian hypocrisy. This event had interest for the 
Bulgars above all from a military standpoint. Another 
ally, a million more combatants — this was the essential 
feature of the transaction. It was the culmination of the 
political wisdom of the Central Empires. 

Here are some of the most characteristic passages from 
the declarations made by Bulgarian politicians to the 
journal Oulro (November 7th and 8th, 1916). 

Dobri Petkoff, Minister of Public Works and Leader of 
the National Liberal Party (Stambouloffist) : 

" In the present case we cannot refuse to believe that the 
Polish people, clearly understanding the position it will occupy 
among free nations, will put all its strength into the common 
struggle, in order to show that it merits fully the freedom and 
independence which the Central Empires guarantee." 

Andre Liaptcheff, former minister, a Democrat : 

" Divers interpretations may be given to the resurrection 
of the Polish State, but what is most certain is that in it we 
shall have a new ally." 

Grigor Natchovitch, former minister and Diplomat : 

" The decision of Germany and Austro-Hungary to restore 
the Polish State is a glorious diplomatic victory for our allies." 
(Two lines obliterated by censor.) " Germany and Austro- 
Hungary are thus assured of the eternal gratitude of the Polish 
people, who are energetic in peace, and Valiant in battle." 

Dr. Momtchiloff, first Vice-President of Parliament 
(Liberal) : 

" The Kingdom of Poland, newly created, with all its sons 
capable of bearing arms, and numbering not fewer than 800,000 
or 900,000, will take their place at our side, and like our own 
heroic soldiers, will defend their independence." 

* The Zar'i'a of July 20th wrote : " The Poles dream no longer of 
the restoration of the ancient kingdom. They will be content with an 
autonomy under the protectorate of a powerful friendly nation " (the 
Germans). 



BULGARS AND SLAVS 159 

Dr. Radoslavoff, President of the Council : 
" We have reason to rejoice at the success of the Polish 
people, all the more as they will form a powerful independent 
State, which will follow the same policy as ourselves." 

Rachko Madjaroff, deputy, and member of the Central 
Bureau of the Democratic Party : 

" The restoration of the Kingdom of Poland puts an end 
to Slavophilism and panslavism, which were only kept alive 
through the pretensions of Russia to protect, after her manner 
and in her own interests, the various Slav peoples. By the 
restoration of Poland, Germany achieves the greatest diplomatic 
victory over the Entente, that enemy of the Central Alliance and 
of the small nations." 

Dr. Boris Vazoff, deputy, Gueshoffist, Russophil : 
" The restoration of the Polish State by the Central Powers 
will have as a first and most important result the strengthening 
of the military power of the allies. A population of ten millions 
in the Russian Poland occupied will bring into the ranks of 
our armies, if the war continues until spring, a million more 
soldiers, strong and of excellent moral." 

Dr. Hodjoff, deputy : 

" Restored Poland will serve as a buffer State between 
Germany and Austria on one side and Russia on the other. 
At the same time the Central Empires count on military aid 
from the Poles." 

Some extracts from the newspapers are as follows : 

Echo de Bulgarie, November 6th : 

" The great battle of nations has reached its culminating 
point, it is not yet finished. New sacrifices are indispensable. 
The Poles, in order to defend the precious gift, they have re- 
ceived, will bring into the struggle the enthusiasm of their 
freedom and the keen edge of their national feeling. 

" The reinforcement of the ranks of the allies by an intrepid 
army is om of the immediate results of Polish independence." 

Kambana, November 6th : 

" The Polish legions were created two years ago. We 
expressed our conviction then that these legions would form 
the embryo of the future army of Poland. Two months ago 
it was decided to transform the Polish legions into regiments." 

Narodni Prava, November 7th : 

" The future of the Poles is inseparable from the future 
of the Central Powers. The Poles know it, and if the necessity 
arises of making new sacrifices on the altar of their freedom and 
independence, they will do so. . . . Poland lives again, thanks 



160 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

to the Central Empires. Without them it would not exist. 
Then let Poland glory in them and bring them aid." 

Zaria, November 8th : 

" The new Polish Kingdom, with its twelve millions of 
inhabitants and the army which it will not delay to form, will 
come to augment the ranks of the allies. An army of a million 
men, which the Polish people will organise shortly, will be a 
factor in no wise to be slighted. The restored Polish Kingdom 
cannot fail to contribute to a more rapid conclusion of peace." 

Echo de Bulgarie, November 9th : 

" The proclamation of the Polish Kingdom is at the same 
time the affirmation of our political impartiality, which our adver- 
saries will essay in vain to dispute. The great fact of Polish 
independence is a new success for the Alliance in the terrible 
struggle which it maintains against the formidable coalition 
of destructive appetites. Naturally the enemy will seek to 
falsify its spirit and to diminish its import." 

From the first the insincerity of this act was obvious to 
all the world : its importance, trifling in reality, was further 
diminished by events as well as by the interpretations put 
upon it by its authors themselves. As for the Bulgars, 
the proclamation of the so-called independent Poland of 
William II. put their Slav sincerity to the hardest proof : 
throughout the whole transaction they put in the first line 
the enrolment of the Poles in the army of the Central Empires. 
They counted so much on this that they lent themselves, 
without reserve, to the ignoble and by no means Slav task 
of forcing the propaganda among the Poles when the 
German plan of enrolment in Poland suffered the well- 
known check. The Bulgarian journal Outro of December 
10th, 1916, " learns from Government sources that one of 
the ministers without portfolio will be despatched shortly to 
Warsaw to study the conditions favourable to the strengthen- 
ing of friendly relations between Bulgaria and Poland." 
The sorry role of this instrument of German propaganda 
in martyred, despoiled and humiliated Poland affords in 
itself the idea of Slavism as practised by the Bulgars at 
such times as they thought opportune to make it serve 
their own ends. 



CHAPTER XIV 

BULGARIA AGAINST THE QUADRUPLE ENTENTE 

The anti- Russian campaign in Bulgaria exists, in the first 
place, as a result of the alliance with the Central Powers — an 
alliance exacting a hostile attitude to Russia. It is to be 
accounted for also by the traditional hostility of a political 
party which introduced into its programme the struggle 
against Russia from the very first days of Bulgarian liberty. 
The Bulgarian press campaign against the other powers of 
the Quadruple Entente is to be explained only by the first 
of the two causes above-mentioned, by the necessity of 
taking sides against the enemies of its allies. This reason 
has sufficed to expose the powers of the Quadruple Entente 
to attacks from the Sofia newspapers, more violent even 
than those directed against Russia. 

The hatred to France and England is all the more 
unjustified seeing that Bulgaria has never had any reason 
to complain of these two western powers, both traditional 
protectors of the small Balkan States, of Bulgaria more 
than any other. All the Balkan countries owe a debt of 
gratitude to French civilisation and French influence, 
towards the Republic whose political support, so disinterested 
and so generous, has been lavished upon them in the difficult 
period of their resurrection and growth. As for England, 
Bulgaria has always been the object of her particular 
attention, and her petted protege in the Balkans. 

Not content with making complaints and accusations 
against their former protectors and benefactors, as strong as 
is possible, the Bulgars give to their attacks on the English 
and French proportions and a tone which surpass even those 
of the German press. 

Here are some examples : 

The Dnevnik of January 20th, 1916, speaking of " the 
hypocrisy of the Quadruple Entente," calls England and 

161 



162 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Russia " immense monsters, creators and protectors of 

tyranny." 

The Narodni Prava (February 22nd, 1916) says : 

" The maritime monster (England) will have to abandon 

the claim to dominate all the seas and peoples as it does the 

Hindoos and many others." 

The article closes with an appeal to Bulgarian audacity : 
" Lack of courage is a vice and hesitation a fault. In 

keeping pace ivith the Prussians you are sure not to run off the 

rails." 

The Narodni Prava (September 4th, 1916) says : 
" Yes, the London lords, the Paris bankers, and the satraps 
of Petrograd wanted us much to shed our blood for them. 
Millions have been lavished, and other millions were ready to 
be distributed ; but the Bulgars do not become the instruments 
of others. The Bulgars are fortunate to have Germany and 
Austria-Hungary as allies. . . . They imagine that Bulgaria 
has no defenders worthy of her, but that they are only indivi- 
duals like those bought and picked out of the slums of London 
and Paris, apaches, thieves, assassins." 

The Kambana of September 5th discovers " the causes 
of the failure of the Entente " (the title of the article) in its 
moral inferiority : 

" At the head of the Entente powers there are only parvenus, 
without any greatness of mind. Public affairs are confided 
in France, Italy, England, Russia, Roumania, to men who 
have emerged from the mud of the streets, destitute of any 
talent, having no moral scruples, uttering fine humanitarian 
phrases, whilst in their hearts seethes a diabolical aversion for 
humanity. . . . The actions of these statesmen of the Entente 
corresponds to their moral qualities. Cynical falsehoods, 
■intrigues, buying of consciences, baseness characterise the proceed- 
ings employed- by the Entente in regard, to neutrals. 

" How can battles be won by armies flung into the firing- 
line by men like Grey, Briand, Salandra, Sazonov, and Sturmer, 
the dregs of humanity and politics ? " 

The Mir of September 25th exposes the base methods 
and lying of the Entente : 

" The longer the war lasts the more we perceive that the 
declarations of the Entente are only empty phrases, and that 
the Entente powers, feeling themselves unequal to the task 
of settling accounts with their adversaries, make every effort 
to call neutral countries to their aid as far as possible." 

And in the same issue of the Mir : 

" Whilst the nations and armies of the Entente are being 



BULGARIA AGAINST THE ENTENTE 163 

exhausted, its press uses language full of emphasis which corre- 
sponds in no wise to the reality of the situation. Day by day 
this press indefatigably seizes lands belonging to others and 
distributes them, annihilates States, and, above all, talks of 
' justice ' as if justice consisted in the enslavement of foreign 
territories, in the destruction of States, in the throttling of 
Greece and all neutral countries." 

It is the same Ententist speaking-trumpet of yesterday, 
the organ of Gueshoff, which, in its issue of September 19th, 
1916, allows itself to speak of the " famished Entente " : 

" The desperate struggles on the French front and in Greek 
Macedonia, the bloody battles in the Dobrudja and the Car- 
pathians, have as their first object the opening of ways of com- 
munication for the export of Russian and Roumanian wheat. 
Torrents of blood flow because in England, France, and Italy the 
populations run the risk of dying of hunger." 

In his article on the finances of the Entente in the 
Kambana of October 10th, 1916, Yonkoff-Vladikine asserts 
that England exploits her allies financially, but that she is 
herself exploited by America : 

" Republican France has become bankrupt several times, 
squandering the money of her creditors. Russia has done 
the same. . . . The war demands money, and there is no more, 
neither at Paris nor Petrograd, where they have always been 
penniless and have always lived on credit. England proposes 
already to shut her purse. We must not forget, moreover, 
that the Frenchman is the most parsimonious being in the world, 
and now that he has become the slave of Great Britain, to the 
point of begging in London a trifling sum like a tramp, they 
have become callous at Paris. That city has become a mad- 
house in which every Frenchman feels more chilly than Polar 
ice. A terrible fever is shaking the French. 

" Yes ; France of the sans-culottes and demagogues ; 
France of hateful politicians who bargain for the liberty 
and independence of peoples ; France of hypocrites, per- 
jurers, swindlers ; France, a slave of Siberian despotism — that 
France has received the punishment her deeds have merited. 
The leading men of Paris have become wild beasts, their laws 
of slaughter and dividing up countries show the incapacity of 
these inhuman types, shut within the iron bars of a menagerie. 

" In Bulgaria people believe that the laws of logic are iden- 
tical with universal laws, and therefore that the wicked will 
receive their deserts. Before us lie the buried corpses of Serbia 
and Montenegro ; the grave of the Roumanians is being dug, 
whilst the Frenchman carries in his breast a dead soul. That 
is enough for us." 



164 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The effrontery of the falsehoods and the outrageous 
character of the insults in this article are equalled by its 
savage and odious spite and triumphant red-skin wicked- 
ness. But it is neither the first nor the last discourse of 
the kind upon France and the French. 

The Narodni Prava of December 2nd, 1916, reprints with 
satisfaction the parody on the " Marseillaise" by the prince 
among Bulgarian poets, Ivan Vazoff, published first in the 
Mir, in which the French are qualified as plunderers, 
despoilers and violators. The Balkanska Pochta of October 
15th, 1916, protests against the use of the French language 
at Sofia. Malinoffs organ, the Preporetz, of July 3rd, 1916, 
accuses the French of vandalism and savage ferocity both at 
Verdun and in Macedonia. " The minds of the sons of great 
France are clouded ; ... it is the spitefulness of impotence." 

* * 

The attacks on England, far more frequent, are couched 
in a tone still more violent. The rage of Germany against 
England, whose intervention upset the calculations of 
William II., is reflected in the Bulgarian press which employs 
the same vocabulary to express the same opinions. 

It insists, above all, on pretending to demonstrate that 
England provoked the war. From the very first days of 
Bulgarian intervention the Bulgarian students at Berlin 
issued the password against England. 

The Berliner Tageblatt of September 29th, 1915, publishes 
the speech made in German by a Bulgarian at the Anhalt 
Station, Berlin, on the occasion of the departure of the 
mobilised Bulgarian students : 

" ' We are going to fight our enemy, England. Until now 
it has been constantly repeated that little Serbia was guilty of 
having caused the world war, but people forgot that behind 
Serbia was England, upon whom lies all the guilt. The shortest 
way from Germany to Egypt runs through Bulgaria. The 
Bulgarian nation is a small one, but we have Germany behind us, 
and we shall not rest until we have attained our ends/ . . . 
The speech was followed by the hymns Choumi Maritza and 
Deutschland fiber Alles." 

The Narodni Prava of November 17th, 1915, had a 
leader entitled " Ed. Grey the Greatest Culprit in the World 
War." It abounded in most scurrilous insults to Grey and 
England. The same journal, writing on November 20th 
on Lord Kitchener's Mission in the Balkans, emphasised 



BULGARIA AGAINST THE ENTENTE 165 

the distress of England, and her fears lest the Germans and 
Turks should take from her Suez and Egypt, thanks to 
Bulgarian aid. 

And further, on January 18th, 1916, in an article entitled 
" The Situation in England " : 

" England should answer for her sins before God and humanity 
... It is England who is responsible for the present situation 
of the nations of Europe, a situation without precedent in 
history. England induced Russia and France to make war 
under the pretence of protecting the rights of small peoples. 
This formula served her to mask her insatiable and selfish 
rapacity and her immoderate desire to dominate the world. . . . 
The English Government counted on the dissolution of Austria 
and the downfall of Germany. What can England do now ? 
It only remains for her to admit that she has reached the end 
of the road that history has traced for her, and to return, broken, 
ruined, destroyed by younger nations, among which the German 
people figure in the first line. Such is the situation of England." 

Under the title " England at War," Gueshoffs Mir 
of April 26th, 1916, wrote : 

" The present world war is but the result of the attempts 
of England to weaken and overthrow her rival, Germany, by 
concluding divers agreements and understandings." 

The Narodni Prava, of May 16th asserted : 
" England has shed much blood in order to secure in the 
future the monopoly of the world's trade. But to her great 
discomfiture, and for the good fortune of the nations who are 
toiling and struggling for the progress of humanity, she has 
been vanquished in this world war. She will have been definitely 
humbled so that she can no more raise her head, nor menace the 
peoples who refuse to follow the path she assigns to them." 

The Anglo-German naval battle between the Skagerrack 
and the Hornsriff, of which the Germans have misrepre- 
sented the character by false reports, created at Sofia 
above all clamorous manifestations against England. 

The Narodni Prava of June 3rd wrote : 

" At sea, between the Skagerrack and Hornsriff, Asquith 
and Sir Ed. Grey received on May 31st a well-merited rejoinder. 
English battleships and cruisers have sunk to the bottom of 
the sea to hear no more the boasting of English statesmen. 
German genius has won the victory even over English sea 
power. . . . Skill has vanquished numerical superiority, quality 
has overcome quantity. Between the Skagerrack and the Hornsriff, 
as at Verdun, as in the Tyrol, on the Vardar, and at Kut-el- 
Amara, the basis of a new world is being laid on the ruins of the 

M 



166 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

old, which was the world of English egoism. . . . The routine is 
being destroyed. Such is the destiny of everything that is old 
and impotent. . . . All Bulgarians send- a cordial greeting to 
the victors and founders of the future." 

The Mir (Opposition) of June 3rd, 1916, is not less 
violent : • 

" This blow is doubtless only a beginning. ... If the 
dogma of English invincibility at sea had not paralysed people's 
minds by extreme dread and caution, perhaps the nations 
would have felt themselves delivered from English oppression 
sooner, and the war itself might have taken another direc- 
tion. ..." 

The Echo de Bulgarie wrote on June 5th, 1916 : 
" There is in this victory — as we said two days ago — more 
than a triumph of arms : there is the decline of Britannic omni- 
potence and the rise of Germany as a naval power of the first 
rank." 

And the Voenni Izvestia said on June 7th, 1916 : 
" The naval blow is crushing. The haughty words, ' Britannia 
rules the waves,' have lost all meaning." 

The Narodni Prava of June 9th, 1916, published the 
telegram sent by the Bulgarian army congratulating the 
German Navy. The Outro of June 10th noticed, among 
numerous felicitations, those addressed to the command 
of the fleet by the Bulgarian deputies then in Germany, etc. 

On the news of the catastrophe which happened to the 
vessel which was conveying Lord Kitchener and the English 
military mission to Russia, the Narodni Prava exulted in 
these terms : 

" After great celebrity, a death little to be envied ! How 
immutable are the laws of destiny ! Everyone has the end he 
deserves. . . . The death of Kitchener is also the death of English 
maritime greatness. He had come to be considered as the repre- 
sentative of supreme English egoism. The ship which carried 
him is at the bottom of the sea. Nobody can save England 
from this misfortune. So she draws near her natural end, 
slowly but infallibly." 

In a preceding issue, the Narodni Prava (June 7th, 1916) 
made it its pleasure to write, in alluding to Kitchener : 
" That man must be good pasturage for the fish of the 
North Sea just now." 

The Echo de Bulgarie of June 9th exaggerates the 
.importance of the event : 

" This deed, following closely on the battle of the Skager- 



BULGARIA AGAINST THE ENTENTE 167 

rack, will make the English ponder over the risks of the war, 
and will teach them that they are not safe from blows ; their 
powerful adversary can reach them everywhere, even in the 
heart of England." 

This attitude is manifested on every occasion. The 
utterances of English statesmen are always commented on 
in the same tone as at Berlin and Vienna. 

Concerning the speeches of Lloyd George, for example, 
the Narodni Prava of October 3rd, 1916, wrote : 

" The latest declarations of Lloyd George have only one 
meaning for us : they show us yet more clearly what a crime 
Bulgaria would have committed if she had rallied to the Entente 
" to fight to the last drop of blood for the triumph of England. Lloyd 
George invites the world to new horrors for the sake of the 
greatness of England." 

The Mir of October 2nd said : 

" Among other ill-fated Ministers who sacrifice to their 
words the last drops of their people's blood, Lloyd George is 
distinguished by the sacrifice he makes of Russian blood to the 
last drop for English interests." 

The Zaria of October 3rd declared : 

" Can one doubt to-day that it is English egoism which 
for twenty-six months has caused the blood of Europe to pour 
in torrents, and is destroying civilisation ? 

" The utterances of Lloyd George are inspired by a fury 
akin to bloodthirstiness. ..." 

The anger aroused in the Bulgarian press by the strength 
and tenacity of the English effort in the world war has led 
it to inconceivably monstrous utterances. In face of 
evidence of which it feels the weight, the Bulgarian press 
offers only falsehood, scurrility, and insults without 
parallel. 

The organ of the President of the Council (Narodni 
Prava) of February 7th, 1917, sa}/s, among other things : 

" The situation may be described thus : On one side there 
are generous giants shaking their fists, and on the other foul 
individuals, blood-stained, mutilated, with broken jaws, carried 
away by fits of rage, howling like wild beasts and crying to 
the giants : ' Strike then ! ' The giants reply : ' We have 
smashed your jaws, broken your teeth ; you welter in your 
blood ; you stink ; you are loathsome to us. Do not force 
us to soil our hands and feet again with your fetid blood. Your 
slaver is repulsive.' 

'V "'No,' they keep on crying; and, supporting each other, 
these bandits, undone bv misery, say : ' Strike then ! ' 



168 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

" That is the frightful reality of the situation. From this 
war there is but one way of escape, and that lies in our strength. 
Do not let us deceive ourselves. The London lords will not 
become more reasonable. When dogs go mad, there is only 
one cure for them ; the lords know this and desire it. . . . 
Those who think, know that there remains only one laudable 
act to the leaders of the Entente, and that is to point a revolver to 
their temples and blow out their brains.*' The English cannot 
reason any longer. Tf they were capable of reasoning they 
would understand that if the war goes on for two years longer 
the German aerial monsters and submarines will reduce the 
lords of Great Britain to mendicity. The fate of the perjured 
Talmudists of the London creches is terrible, but they do not 
perceive it. They are bhnd. Blind ! ... At this moment all 
the peoples whom they have ruined cry with one voice : ' May 
they be accursed ! ' And the echoes repeat, ' Accursed ! 
Accursed ! ' " 

The Kambana of the same date speaks in a similar 
strain : 

" It will be the end of English domination on seas and oceans. 
It will be the breaking up of England, the loss of all her colonies ; 
it will mean depopulation, since the masses will quit the island, 
and England will have then only some ten million inhabitants. . . . 
Great Britain, deprived of internal unity, and hereditary enemy 
of national crystallisation — as well by her cold, damp, stony, 
miserable soil as by her artificially accumulated population 
ready to disperse as soon as the colonies have been taken away — 
Great Britain, neither as a country nor a nation, is called to 
play a part in the world history which will decide the fate of 
nations in the future. The Bagdad railway will send Great 
Britain to doze on the couches where the old empresses of seas 
and oceans — Spain, Venice, Holland, Portugal — are reposing. 
Deprived of India, the English will be ruined everywhere, and 
the catastrophe will be frightful and irrevocable." 

* * 
* 

So it is evident that public opinion is agreed on hostility 
to England as on other questions of Bulgarian foreign 
policy. England is accused of causing, more than any other 
power of the Quadruple Entente, the European massacre. 
The Bulgarian rule of repaying her greatest benefactors 
with bitter hatred is doubly proved. Indeed, in this same 
ungrateful Bulgaria, it is precisely the Mir, known formerly 
for its Anglomania, which has displayed the blackest ingrati- 
tude, in leading against England a campaign systematically 
uninterrupted and unscrupulous. The Mir is nevertheless 



BULGARIA AGAINST THE ENTENTE 169 

the organ of Gueshoff , who owes everything to the English — 
his career to their culture, and his life even to their generosity. 

It will suffice to add here some extracts. The Mir of 
May 14th, 1916, described the terrible effects of Zeppelin 
raids on England : 

" The editors of Reuter's Agency rack their brains in vain 
to concoct despatches representing the visits of Zeppelins as 
inoffensive. . . . What would happen if, instead of showing 
that they are capable of conquering space between Edinburgh 
and Liverpool, the Zeppelins decided to assemble over London, 
and to sprinkle the capital with bombs every night ? English 
nerves would be shaken more than ever. Zeppelin attacks 
are not a trifle ; they are not a secondary item in this war, 
but, indeed, an element as important as it is terrible/' 

The same journal wrote on July 27th, 1916 : 
" According to our information from the most competent 
source, England has manoeuvred knowingly to drag Russia and 
France into war against Germany. ... If the war is prolonged 
to-day more than is necessary, it is, above all, thanks to the 
influence and under the dictation of England." 

The Mir of October 14th, 1916, commented on the 
speeches of Lloyd George and Asquith as follows : 

" In the words of these two Ministers there is the avowal 
that, if peace were to be concluded, England would be ruined, 
and that all which has been spoken and written is but hollow 
phrases uttered only to facilitate fishing in troubled waters." 

Concerning the activity of submarines off the coast of 
America, the Mir of October 16th, 1916, declared : 

" The activity of submarines in the ocean close to the 
American coast is an important turning-point in the conduct 
of the world war. It is high time to take every measure to force 
England to renounce her menace of destruction to Germany and 
her allies. It is only in this way that we can succeed in obtain- 
ing the general peace desired by all the world." 

Discussing the possibility of American intervention in 
the interests of peace, the Mir of November 9th said : 

" The adverse party (the Entente) is constantly asserting 
that it also is fighting for the triumph of the principle of nation- 
alities, but at the same time demands the undoing of the people 
most capable of existence — the German people. It is the English 
who insist on this most of all." 

Touching the declarations of English Ministers, the Mir 
of November nth had the following : 

" The war cannot be continued out of spite. The English 



170 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

understand this situation very well, and do everything to feed 
the frenzy, both among themselves and their Allies, by affirming 
that their existence is menaced so long as Germany is not 
destroyed." 

The same journal said on November 13th : 
" We have explanations enough as to the causes of the 
war. It is not by fine words and blandishments that the English 
will impose the belief on anybody that they are not fighting 
for their own ends, like the others." 

* * 
* 

Of all the present enemies of Bulgaria, the Italians have 
been treated with the most respect by the Bulgars. It is 
only the ultra-Austrophil Kambana which attacks Italy 
at times with violence and uses the arguments of the Vienna 
press. The other journals say little about Italy ; their 
articles, moderate in tone, sometimes make distinct reserva- 
tions and often express a hope that Italy will enter on the 
right way. 

The Narodni Prava of January 29th, 1916, in an article 
entitled " Italy in the Balkans," examines calmly and in an 
impartial manner the conflict of Italian and Austrian 
interests in the Adriatic. It thinks Italian calculations 
have shown themselves to be inexact and mistaken. The 
article criticises the errors of Italian statesmen, " who have 
led Italy into a war that will exhaust and ruin her." 

In the Preporetz of September 20th, 1916, the corre- 
spondent at the front in the environs of Bellassitza testifies 
to the astonishment which the Bulgarian soldier evinces 
at finding the Italian among his enemies : " What do they 
want with us, when nothing divides us, when we have had 
no quarrel with them ? " 

The correspondent of the Giornale d' Italia at Bucharest 
interviewed a member of the Bulgarian Cabinet, who 
assured him that the Bulgarians would not attack Valona : 
" they do not wish to fight the Italians, as they desire to 
renew cordial relations after the war " {Journal de Geneve, 
July 13th, 1916 ; despatch from Rome). The first rumours 
of a separate Bulgarian peace were from an Italian source. 
(For example, the despatch of the Stefani Agency in the 
Italian newspapers of August 24th, 1916, etc.) 

The cautious tone towards Italy seems to have been a 
watchword given to the Bulgarian press, which is one of the 
best disciplined concerning foreign policy. The Serbo- 



BULGARIA AGAINST THE ENTENTE 171 

Italian controversy on the subject of the eastern shore of 
the Adriatic, made the most of by the Austro-German press 
for purposes of intrigue from the first days of Italian inter- 
vention, had given birth to Bulgarian hopes of a conflict 
which, dividing the Italians and Serbs, would give Bulgaria 
another ally. 

This same cautious attitude decided the Bulgarians 
to refuse their aid against the Italian troops in Albania. 
A fraction, happily minute, of Italian public opinion 
allowed itself to be won over by the equivocal Bulgarian 
advances and betrayed its sympathy now and then with 
Bulgaria. But the arrival of Italian soldiers on the Salonica 
front cut short this Bulgarian game of intrigue, and Italy 
is now at Salonica, side by side with her Allies. The sincere 
friends of peace, order, and progress in the Peninsula 
recognise the important and enviable part which devolves 
on Italy in the work of Balkan restoration. This part 
cannot fail to be congenial on condition that it is inspired 
by the great ideals which freed Italy. And we ought to 
contemplate with pleasure the collaboration of Italy in 
the deliverance of Serbia and the liberation of the Yugo- 
slavs, who will become the best and most clearly indicated 
allies of Italy. 

The great Italian savant Ferrero wrote in the Secolo of 
November 15th, 1916, an article from which we must quote 
the following as a conclusion to the present chapter : 

" The Central Powers have proved that they knew what 
they wanted in setting fire to Europe with the Serbian torch. 
As Poland in Eastern Europe, Serbia is the real enemy of Germany 
in the Balkans. If Europe wishes to raise a bulwark in the 
Balkans against German ambitions, that bulwark cannot be 
other than Serbia strengthened so as to afford sufficient resist- 
ance. The European war has proved how vain it would be 
to imagine other artificial solutions, such as, for example, com- 
bination with Bulgaria. 

" Bulgaria has not come out of a struggle with the Germans. 
She has never suffered from German authoritative power. 
That is why she could betray Russia so easily and with so few 
qualms of conscience. Serbia and Poland, on the contrary, 
were born struggling against the German world. Their geo- 
graphical situation forces them to be either victims or, anta- 
gonists of pan-Germanism. If it is wished to keep German 
ambitions and appetites within just and reasonable limits, we 
must rebuild the Polish rampart in Eastern Europe and con- 
solidate the Serbian rampart in' the Balkans. 



CHAPTER XV 

BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 

It has never been possible to discern a Bulgarian Balkan 
policy consistent with itself — the application of a system, 
of a national programme. All the ventures dictated by 
Bulgarian megalomania and Chauvinism display only a 
policy of inclinations. 

The principle of this political gluttony consisted in the 
instinct which led the Bulgars to take the side on which 
they hoped for the maximum of profit. That is why their 
pretensions concerning Serbia became the basis of Bulgarian 
Balkan policy. Hostility to Serbia led fatally to junction 
with Central Europe, and this brought about conflict with 
Russia. 

Bulgarian policy towards neighbouring Balkan countries 
— Roumania, Greece, Turkey — was the result of the new 
state of affairs, a result not logical, but determined rather 
by a concrete obligation. Even in concentrating all her 
interest on the enslavement of Serbia, Bulgaria was not able, 
however, to discipline herself, by an effort of her own will, 
to the point of subordinating to this unique object her 
numerous other pretensions. If Bulgaria has been relatively 
moderate towards Roumania, Greece, and Turkey, it is less 
through wisdom than through obedience to the Austro- 
Germans, who have dictated her conduct in an absolute 
fashion during all the past year. 

Bulgaria has, besides, always put forth pretensions 
to neighbouring territories. There is not one of which 
she has not claimed at least a portion, even when such 
irreconcilable policy was not altogether prudent. These 
voracious appetites, which the Bulgarians have not always 
been able to dissimulate in spite of their cunning, led them 
to the catastrophe of 1913 and the Treaty of Bucharest, 
for which they throw the responsibility on everyone except 
themselves, the only real culprits. 

172 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 173 

In 1913 Bulgaria prolonged the war against Turkey, 
against the will of her allies and without need, since the 
war aims of Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, the liberation of 
their racial brethren from the Turks, had been attained. 
And, whilst provoking dissatisfaction among her allies and 
putting forth immoderate pretensions which embraced 
eastern Thrace, Bulgaria did not appear disposed to make any 
concession to her fourth neighbour, Roumania, that would 
have gained her friendship. She ended, at the last moment, 
by concluding a hurried peace with the Turks, in order to 
defend herself from three new adversaries which she had 
herself created by her inordinate covetousness. 

This is confirmed in an interesting fashion by the Mir, 
the organ of Gueshoff, who was at the head of the Govern- 
ment in the spring of 191 3. On the anniversary of the 
Serbo-Bulgarian alliance (concluded on March 13th, 1912) 
the Mir, in its issue of March 14th, 1916, tried to prove the 
point of view (developed in an article quoted above of 
April 23rd) that it was not the alliance with Serbia but 
Bulgarian intransigency towards Greeks and Serbs which 
let loose the catastrophe. 

" The cause of the catastrophe," writes the Mir, " does not 
lie in disagreement concerning the contested zone of the Serbo- 
Bulgarian treaty ; the Salonica question has been the germ 
and cause of the catastrophe. It is to have Salonica that we 
have let the Greeks ally themselves with the Serbs." 

We must not seek, however, in this costly experience 
the explanation of Bulgarian moderation towards Rou- 
manians and Greeks in 1915 and 1916. During the two 
years that have elapsed since the Treaty of Bucharest, the 
Bulgarians have not moderated their appetites nor learnt 
to display tact ; they have merely, from the political point 
of view, come under German discipline. 

And even under German direction, the repression of 
Bulgarian inclinations was not always effected without 
difficulty. 

Although the powerful influence of the Austro-Germans 
at Sofia recommended from 1913 an understanding with 
Greeks and Roumanians, in order that the Bulgars might 
have their hands free for action against Serbia, they showed 
a total lack of consideration for the Greeks, even in the 
autumn of 1915, and until the moment they entered on the 
war with Serbia. And it is yet another characteristic 
trait of the Balkan policy of the Bulgars that they showed 



174 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

such cavalier indifference towards the projects of Venizelos, 
who, nevertheless, urged the renewal of the Balkan League 
and declared that he was ready, in the name of Greece, to sacrifice 
to this end a large portion of Greek territory which would he 
ceded to Bulgaria. But that was precisely what Bulgaria 
did not want. Refusing the Greek offer of compensation, 
she preferred that Greece should detach herself from her 
ally Serbia, leaving a free hand to Bulgaria for creating a 
new order of things in the Balkans. 

According to authentic declarations made by Radoslavoff 
to the Sobranie some days before the Bulgarian intervention, 
Bulgaria did not declare war until after having received from 
Athens and Bucharest the assurance that she would have 
to encounter only one enemy — Serbia. Until this declara- 
tion the Bulgarian press did not spare either Roumania or 
Greece. Throughout the summer of 1915 the organ of the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Echo de Bulgarie, reserved in 
every issue a special space in the front page for attacks on 
Greece, the Hellenes, and King Constantine. This bantering 
of Hellenism contained more insults than the attacks 
directed against the Serbs. 

The tone changed after the Bulgarian intervention, but the • 
substitution of friendship for enmity was too brusque to per- 
mit of the dissimulation of the real motives and sentiments. 

In the new state of affairs which they were preparing 
in the Balkans, the Bulgars were wanting in sincerity 
towards the Greeks, and reserved for them an unenviable 
role. The best proof of it is in the number of newspaper 
articles published during 1915 on events in Greece, which, 
whilst approving of the new regime and policy of King 
Constantine, carefully avoided examination and serious 
consideration of Greco-Bulgarian relations. 

The Mir recognises this in its issue of March 18th, 1916. 
After reproducing an article of the Neon Asty of Athens, 
on the intrigues of the Venizelist and Ententist journals 
tending to embroil Greece and Bulgaria, and emphasising 
the assertion of the semi-official Greek journal, that Bul- 
garia has too many other cares to make further pretensions 
to Salonica, the Mir makes the following reflections : 

It is doubtless only a negative basis for a Greco-Bulgarian 
understanding ; but as it is impossible to establish an under- 
standing on loftier and more positive foundations, we hope 
that neighbouring States will know how to profit by it, notwith- 
standing its negative character." 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 175 

That is sufficiently clear. 

Indeed, the basis of the Greco-Bulgarian compromise 
of the autumn of 1915 could not but be negative. On 
neither side was it attempted to smooth away difficulties. 
Only tacit concessions were made reciprocally. Bulgaria gave 
up the Struma valley (which had more interest for her than 
that of the Vardar), and Constantine renounced his alliance 
with Serbia (which for Greece was an interest equally vital) . 
This tacit understanding, which resembled a criminal 
conspiracy in the mystery and silence which enveloped it, 
was not discussed, and, for that matter, did not lend itself 
to discussion. Without daring to look each other in the 
face, Bulgaria and Constantine shook hands under the advice 
and with the approval of Berlin. Both remained under the 
suggestion of new compensations of which they were 
allowed only a glimpse, compensations which were to make 
up for mutual concessions and remove existing causes of 
dispute. 

The sorry reasoning which was employed on the rare 
occasions when it was essayed to present the attitude of 
Greece as a natural one, shows clearly how difficult is the 
serious discussion of the conditions of these relations and 
this tacit compromise. 

The Echo de Bulgarie of January 1st, 1916, criticises 
the declaration of Venizelos. That journal asserts that in 
the spring of 1915 Venizelos had advised King Constantine 
to cede Cavalla to Bulgaria. If this plan had been put in 
execution the Bulgarian frontier would have advanced 
eastward to Kospoli, whilst on the west it would have 
included all the " uncontested zone," taking in Monastir. 

" Venizelos himself was disposed to give to Bulgaria more 
than she has conquered up to the present. Without doubt, 
our troops have occupied to the west all the contested zone 
as far as the Albanian frontier, but to the east our frontier 
does not go beyond the Maritza. Moreover, what we have 
gained in the west does not exceed, either geographically or 
economically, the value of the provinces Venizelos was willing" 
to concede to us in Thrace. If Bulgaria, after peace, were to 
preserve all she has conquered, she would possess less than 
she would have obtained by accepting the offers of Venizelos. 
and the Bulgarian population would not go beyond the figure 
of six or seven millions. The combination of Venizelos would 
have allowed Serbia also to obtain -immense territories ; then 
what would have become of the interests of Greece between 
a Serbia of fifteen million and a Bulgaria of seven million 



176 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

inhabitants ? The Serbo-Bulgarian question being already settled, 
neither Greeks nor Bulgars have reason to remain distrustful 
of each other." (Berliner Tageblait, January 3rd, 1916.) 

The ruse concealed in these lines is too simple and shallow 
not to betray itself. Bulgaria pretends to fear unfortunate 
consequences for Greece from the Venizelos project. She is 
troubled about the injury to Greece which concessions to 
Bulgaria might bring in their train, an injury which would 
afflict the Bulgars deeply ! On this account, in order to 
save Greece from a Great Serbia, the Bulgarians sought 
compensation in systematic pillage of the greater part of 
Serbian territory. The expansion of Serbia, an ally of 
Greece nevertheless, and having no pretensions to any parcel 
of Greek territory, was considered by the Bulgars as dan- 
gerous to Greece. To remove this peril, they saw only 
one means, the crushing of Serbia and the extension of 
Bulgaria, of that Bulgaria which had never ceased to claim 
Cavalla, Salonica, and the most southerly provinces of 
western Macedonia. 

That was the best argument Bulgaria could bring in 
trying to justify the compromise of Greece with the new 
order of things, as planned by Sofia and approved by 
Berlin. 

* * 

In most cases, if not all, the Bulgarian press confined 
itself to defending Greece and King Constantine against 
the Ententist and Venizelist press. 

The Mir wrote (January 18th, 1916), under the title 
" The Entente and Greece " : 

" The Anglo-French always imagine that the Balkan peoples 
are at daggers-drawn with their sovereigns. For example, 
they expected a revolution in Bulgaria in case the Government 
decided for mobilisation. Events have given the measure 
of this error. At present the Anglo-French make the same 
suppositions with regard to Greece. They count much also 
on Greco-Bulgarian tension. But Greco-Bulgarian enmity might 
be transformed into friendship. Even if it existed, that enmity 
would not constitute a serious obstacle to the irruption of 
Bulgarian and German armies into Greek provinces occupied 
by Anglo-French troops." 

The Bulgarian press faces the possibility of this meta- 
morphosis — Bulgaro-Greek hostility transmuted into friend- 
ship ; but it takes good care not to define the nature of the 
hostility nor how the miracle could be accomplished. 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 177 

It will suffice to quote from a few articles on this question. 
Whether they speak of the Greek internal crisis or the 
blockade of Greece, or the proceedings of the Allies at 
Athens, or the irruption of Bulgarian troops into Greek 
territory, the Bulgarian journals repeat the same ideas to 
satiety. 

The Echo de Bulgarie says (June 14th, 1916) : 

" The occupation of the Rupel defile imposed by the bluster- 
ing preparations of General Sarrail has been recently the signal 
for an odious campaign of intrigues and falsehood against 
Bulgaria. 

" The object of this revolting campaign is very clear : it 
is a question, before all, of rousing the suspicions of the Greeks, 
in order to trouble the good relations existing between the two 
neighbour nations." 

The same journal, July 3rd, 1916 : 

" The Greek people has not only to choose between peace 
and war. It must choose between liberty and vassalage, between 
honour and decay. It depends on its political maturity and 
courage to free itself from an oppressive tutelage and resume 
its liberty of action." 

When the crisis in Greece was at its sharpest, in the last 
months of 1916, there appeared what follows concerning 
the Venizelist movement at Salonica and the events which 
sprang from it. 

Dnevnik, September 6th, 1916 : 

" There is being played at Salonica a comedy of national 
revolt of which the threads are to be found at the headquarters 
of General Sarrail. . . . There is but one way of saving Greece 
from the disaster that is being prepared for her ; that is to drive 
her ' protectors ' from Salonica, in concert with us. It will not 
be difficult afterwards for her to settle accounts with her own 
traitors to their country." 

The Echo de Bulgarie, September 22nd, 1916 : 
" New weaknesses would be fatal to the future of the Greek 
race, which it is being sought to subject to Russo-Italian ambi- 
tions. Between the displeasure of the Entente, and the peril 
that menaces Hellenism, the choice is not difficult." 

The same journal, September 29th, 1916 : 
" To the conservative policy of King Constantine M. Venizelos 
opposes a programme of action. This programme is a direct 
menace to Bulgaria. Nevertheless, it is to the alliance with 
Bulgaria that this man owes his prestige and his political success. 
And if he clamours to-day against ' the hereditary enemy,' 
and looks to the crushing of Bulgaria as a source of greatness 



178 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

for his country, it is that he desires faithfully to follow his 
friend Pachitch. The latter has led Serbia to Corfu. Where 
does M. Venizelos wish to lead Greece ? " 

The Mir, October 20th, 1916 : 

" The Greek people has always known how to contain itself 
and to keep its dignity ; it has resisted attempts at corruption 
as well as the menaces of the Entente. ... It may be doubted 
whether Greece will allow herself to be forced by the Entente 
to declare war on Bulgaria. ..." 

The Preporetz, October 25th, 1916 (on the supposition 
of a Venizelist revolution) : 

" It would be the last act of the Greek drama, after which 
the whole of Greece would fall into the hands of its ' protectors.' 
We must make a reservation, however. King Constantine has 
given proofs up to the present of a force of resistance which allows 
for the eventuality of a surprise for the Entente at the last 
moment." 

Radoslavoff declared to the correspondent of the Frank- 
furter Zeitung on November 15th, 1916 : 

" So long as King Constantine remains on the throne, Greece 
will not march against us." 

To give a notion of the panegyrics which were showered 
on King Constantine since the month of September, 1915, 
when he allowed the Bulgars a free field in the Balkans, 
we must give a quotation from the Echo de Bulgarie, which, 
deceived by the false news of the abdication of the Greek 
King, made lamentation for one whom, a short time before, 
in 1913, it had loaded with insults.* 

The Echo de Bulgarie, September 4th, 1916, wrote : 

" So Eleutherios Venizelos resumes the power to which he 
aspired with such avidity, and King Constantine vacates the 
throne which, three years ago, he ascended under dolorous 
circumstances for the Royal Family of Greece, and which he 
has occupied with dignity. 

" King Constantine was a great Greek patriot, and a sovereign 
full of energy and perseverance ; he acquired his popularity in 
collaboration with the Bulgars at first, against them after- 
wards, and the Greeks would commit a crime, in admitting 
for a single instant, that their King would have neglected the 
interests of Hellenism at any moment. Now that he prefers 
to renounce the throne rather than cringe to the foreigner, 
all must bow in reverence before his strength of character. 

* He was called in the nationalist press " Constantine the Bulgai - 
slayer," " the ridiculous archi- strategist," and by epithets more insulting- 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 179 

That act, chivalrous and partaking of antique grandeur, wins 
admiration for King Constantine from all men of spirit. 

" This result is well in the traditions of Entente policy ; 
how many times these last three years have not the French 
and Russian newspapers announced the abdication of a king 
still more inconvenient for the designs of the Entente in the 
East ! " 

It is of interest to cite some further extracts from the 
Bulgarian press of December, 1916, at a time when the 
crisis at Athens was sharpest. The Sofia journals — and 
with them the Bulgarian Minister back from Athens — did 
not conceal that at Sofia, as well as at Berlin, they expected 
to see Greece offer a desperate resistance to the Entente, 
concerted between the three sovereigns, Germanic or 
Germanised. 

The Mir of December 4th, 1916, wrote : 

" Venizelos essayed to utilise the hatred of the ' hereditary 
enemy,' but he was forced to the conviction that the hatred 
had disappeared from Greece and that another hatred had 
taken its place." 

From the Rabotnitcheski Vestnik of December 4th : 

" According to the Turkish Minister, Ghalib Bey, the Greeks 
say : For centuries we have been grateful to the French, but 
now we cry openly in the streets : ' Long live the Turks and 
the Bulgars \ ' " 

From the Preporetz, December nth : 

" However small it may be, the Royal army will seriously 
menace the rear of Sarrail's army. And if the Royal troops 
succeeded in fortifying themselves on a single point of the 
western shore of the Gulf of Salonica, the revictualling of Sarrail 
in provisions and munitions would become very uncertain." 

From the Mir of December 26th. " Declarations of a 
Diplomatist " : . 

" The events at Athens leave no doubt as to the direction 
of the sympathies of official Greece. Greece has decided on firm- 
ness. The success of the first combats, the presence of German 
submarines in the waters of the Archipelago and Mediterranean, 
the German note for peace, the blockade of the Greek coasts, 
and the disaster of Roumania — all is of a nature to strengthen 
the firm resolution of the Hellenic people to resist. ... On 
the retreat of the troops, the streets of Athens resounded with 
the cry : ' We can hold out a month against the blockade, the 
Germans will soon come to help us ! ' " 



180 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Outro, December 30th (interview with the Bulgarian 
Minister at Athens, Passaroff, who said) : 

" Bulgaria and Greece lived in the past in ' hereditary enmity.' 
However, a complete change has taken place. The authorities 
as well as the population extend a very friendly welcome to 
all Bulgarians. I beg you to make known that there is no 
anti-Bulgarian current at present in Greece. When I left 
Athens the former Presidents of Council, as well as professors, 
students, representatives of the Court, and the people generally, 
expressed to me their sense of sympathy and regret." 

The praise lavished on the Roumanians for their inde- 
pendent spirit and their high political intelligence, pro- 
nouncements on the solidarity of Bulgaro-Roumanian 
interests in the Balkans, equalled the most obsequious 
compliments to the Greeks so long as Roumania took no 
part in the war. A watchword silenced Bulgarian claims 
in the Dobrudja and the rancour of 1913. 

Roumanian intervention revealed all at once the hatred 
which the Bulgars could hardly stifle under that forced 
silence until September 1st, 1916. What the Bulgarian 
press has written against Roumania and the Roumanian 
people since that date oversteps all bounds. 

We will give only a few extracts in chronological order : 

The Dnevnik of September 1st said : 

" Bulgaria is quite steadfast with her allies. Blessed be 
the hour of settling accounts with perfidious enemies." 

The Zar'ia of September 2nd wrote : 

" We are glad to see Roumania pass over to the enemies 
and leave us a free field for action." 

The Balkanska Pochta (September 5th) published the 
prophecy of the Bulgarian poet, Ivan Vazoff, predicting 
the annihilation of Roumania. 

The Narodni Prava of September 5th preached the 
" annihilation of the infamous enemy," and proclaimed, 
as " the least vengeance, the cutting off of Roumania from 
the Black Sea, and perpetual privation of the issue through 
Constantinople and the Dardanelles." 

The Mir of the same date wrote : 

" All the conditions for founding a lasting friendship were 
combined — although, in truth, we were never able to glance at the 
map without remarking that the natural frontier between the two 
countries could only be the Danube. One can understand the 
rapid and furious advance of our army across the plain which 
was formerly the cradle of the Bulgarian Empire.'" (Dobrudja.) 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 181 

The Narodni Prava of September 7th declared : 

" We must break Roumania with all our force, without 
consideration and without quarter. Death to Roumania and 
to her armies which come from the north ! Death to the perfidious 
neighbour so that we may live ourselves. And since she tries 
to undo the great work of our powerful ally, Germany, in open- 
ing a free way to Asia, the latter will not abandon us, but march 
at our side, and will aid us to defeat this neighbour without 
faith or honour, led by debauchees, by the bloodthirsty, and 
corrupt." 

The Kambana of September 9th said : 

" By the overthrow of Serbia, the west of the Balkan Penin- 
sula has been swept clean of Russian influence ; by the over- 
throw of Roumania, the east will be assured. ..." 

The Narodni Prava wrote on September 13th, 1916 : 

" Should we not be culpable, we and our allies, in this struggle 
for morality and justice, if we left intact the independence of the 
Roumanian bandits and brigands ? Should we not one day 
be severely condemned by history for our guilty tolerance and 
our pity towards criminals ? It is our duty to justify the reputa- 
tion we have gained of being the champions of the ideals of humanity 
and of cleansing the road from weeds and all that is rotten and 
corrupt. If we left vestiges of them they might corrupt humanity 
again and become the cause of new struggles." 

The Balkanska Pochta declared on September 15th : 

" Our present object as to the Roumanians is to take from 
them their arms, to purify their State, and to establish in it 
civilisation — true civilisation — built up of work, honour, and the 
virtues of a people well bred and possessed of sane ideas. The 
task of the Bulgarian army is to throw the garbage on the 
dunghill and purify afterwards. Bulgaria has shown too much 
patience in tolerating on the other side of the Danube a dangerous 
gangrene, not only for her, but for the progress of humanity." 

The Preporetz of October 24th wrote : 

" The destruction of Roumania will render the defeat of 
Sarrail inevitable. From this point of view it is clear that the 
rapid crushing of Roumania is of capital importance and absolute 
necessity for us and our allies." 

The taking of Constanza furnished the Bulgarian press 
with an occasion for celebrating in the same tone the 
" Roumanian Downfall." 

The Voenni Izvestia of October 25th wrote : 

" The Russians can at most prolong the agony of Roumania." 

N 



182 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Echo de Bulgarie of October 28th declared : 
" The strategic frontier, the famous strategic frontier, 
imaginary safeguard of Roumanian integrity, has been of no 
help to the Roumanians against Bulgarian valour. To-morrow 
Roumania will be np more. Perjured like Serbia, she will perish 
as the latter has perished, covered with shame and oppro- 
brium. ..." 

The Mir of October 26th wrote : 

" The success against Roumania, in the north and in the 
south, places on the order of the day the question of the pro- 
longation of the existence of this State." 

To the correspondent of the Hungarian journal Az Est 
(November 5th, 1916), Radoslavoff declared " he had the 
firm hope that Roumania would cease to exist as an independent 

State." 

* * 
* 

The falsehood, ambiguity, suspicion, hollowness which 
characterise the discussion of Bulgaro-Greek relations 
on the one hand, and the wild jubilations concerning the 
Roumanian downfall on the other, express one and the same 
mentality. In complimenting the Greek Government and 
King Constantine, the Bulgars have never let escape, even 
involuntarily, a good word for the Greek people. Their real 
feelings with regard to the Greek people were expressed in 
their attacks on Venizelos and his partisans, at the time 
when the latter were returned to Parliament in an imposing 
majority by the free will of the people, and when Venizelos 
exposed, with the greatest spirit of sacrifice and the broadest 
views, his plans for a new Balkan Entente. 

The Bulgars waited for the coming of Roumania into the 
war to call the Dobrudja " the cradle of the Bulgarian 
Empire." As for Greece, they did not hesitate to call 
Salonica in their semi-official organ " the Bulgarian Bethle- 
hem." They did this at the same moment when they were 
showering on King Constantine protestations of amity and 
panegyrics in honour of his wisdom and patriotism.* The 
reason is that Bulgarian greed has always been stronger 
than the promptings of tact and political caution. 

Bulgarian Imperialism has always been opposed to the 
idea of an understanding among the Balkan nations ; 
naturally, this opposition became more accentuated and 
arrogant after Roumanian intervention. 

* Article in fche Narodni Prava, May 23rd, 1916. 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 183 

The Narodni Prava of November ist, 1916, wrote : 

" A Bulgarian statesman who would have hesitated, were 
it but for a moment, to wage war against Russian policy, so 
perilous to Bulgaria, would have been a fool ; this war became 
all the more imperative when conditions became favourable 
and the aid of powerful allies was assured. . . . Bulgaria had 
many and grave reasons for not accepting the plans of Balkan 
federation which those master idealists, Rakovsky, Levsky, 
and Botoff, preached. . . . How could Bulgarian statesmen 
want the ' Balkan Confederation ' when they had to act either 
against the ' protectress ' of the Confederation or the enemies 
of that protectress ? 

" The Balkan alliance condemned the Balkan Confedera- 
tion. Russia had designed through this alliance to strike a blow 
at the Central "Powers (the best proof of this exists in the Serbo- 
Bulgarian treaty), and then to throw the Balkans into con- 
fusion. A Confederation in the heart of which the political 
tendencies of the four great European States cross is an impossi- 
bility. 

" The Balkan peninsula cannot become another Switzer- 
land. . . . Bulgaria, given its numerical superiority and its 
natural wealth, cannot consent to be one of the members of a 
Confederation of which all the burden would be borne by her. 

" That is why she has preferred, taking into consideration 
her past and her future — as Leopold von Ranke said — to take 
up the defence of her historic rights, of her rights to existence, 
and to pursue the path of her natural and historic evolution." 

This article of the semi-official Bulgarian journal only 
repeats word for word the Austro-German complaints 
against the Balkan Alliance. Professor Bruckner, of Berlin, 
had said, for instance : 

" The Balkan Alliance caused the defeat and downfall of 
Turkey in Europe. But it had still another object : the down- 
fall of Austria. If the Balkan Alliance had remained vigorous, 
the Serbian and Roumanian armies would be now at Budapesth, 
assuredly. It is the ability and merit of Count Berthold which 
has destroyed the Balkan Alliance. ..." 

It does not appear that at Sofia so much ability was 
required in order to combat and compromise the notion 
of an accord between the Balkan nations. In his pamphlet, 
" The Balkan States and the Confederative Principle " 
(Sofia, 1915), A. Schopoff affirms that " this principle is 
found in the programmes of some of the Bulgarian parties. 
Four of these — the Radical, the Agrarian, and the two 
Socialist parties (unified and doctrinaire)— have for a 
fundamental principle an understanding and a Balkan 



184 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Confederation ; the four others — the National; the Demo- 
cratic, the Progressist, and the divers fractions of the Liberal 
Party — esteem this principle inapplicable for the moment." 
Indeed, as we have seen and as we shall see later, Bulgarian 
pretensions on all sides, and to the detriment of all neigh- 
bours, have always excluded a serious policy in this sense. 
In the chorus of Chauvinistic megalomaniacs at Sofia 
we have not heard a word in favour of the accord of Balkan 
nations since October, 1915 — except some platonic and 
theoretical manifestations of the Extreme Socialists. In 
the report of a sitting of the Sobranie, the Mir of November 
30th, 1916, says that " the Socialists, as always, reiterate 
the anodyne fable of the ' Balkan Federation.' " 

* * 
* 

The Bulgars, who regard their political volte-face from 
Russia as the casting away of a legend, have no analogous 
explanation for their taking sides with Turkey. The 
Turkish yoke, too recent, and of which the weight was so 
heavy, has left too many traces to permit of the hatred and 
distrust of the Bulgars for their oppressors to be entitled a 
legend : the brutal traces of that long and cruel servitude, 
physical as well as moral, which still weighs on the generation 
actually at the head of affairs, alone enable us to under- 
stand the obscure mentality which takes pleasure in false- 
hood, treason, inconstancy and equivocation, the manifes- 
tations of which in Bulgarian politics have amazed the 
world. 

And this mentality, common to Bulgars and Turks, 
can alone explain the facility with which two hereditary 
enemies have been able, with the stroke of a pen, to trans- 
form their hostility into fraternity. 

The long parley between Bulgaria and Turkey brought 
about by the Germans was soon followed by the formal 
alliance between the Bulgars and Austro-Germans. And it 
may be said even that the Bulgars, in renouncing their 
traditional hostility, forgot more easily than the Turks, 
who, after a year, had not ratified, through their Parlia- 
ment, the treaty concerned with the rectification of the 
Tur co -Bulgarian frontiers. The Turks continued to be 
reserved and distrustful of the disciples who had surpassed 
them. 

All who have visited Sofia, or any other Bulgarian town, 
must have remarked, both in private houses and public 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 185 

buildings, a multitude of engravings and images repre- 
senting the sufferings of the Turkish epoch or episodes in 
the war of deliverance. These memorials of historic events 
which led to the liberation of slaves from the Turkish yoke 
became embarrassing after September, 1915. It is asserted 
that, in virtue of a confidential order, the inopportune 
patriotic engravings were removed from all the public build- 
ings. Other measures were taken openly. The newspapers of 
October 15th, 1915, announced that a decree of the military 
command of Sofia forbade the sale of picture postcards 
published in 1912, during the Turco-Bulgarian war, " the 
Turks being now our allies. All those found selling such 
cards will be prosecuted." 

Bulgaro-Turkish friendship was inaugurated at the same 
time as Bulgaro-German friendship. It was manifested by 
a brisk exchange of telegrams between Sofia and Con- 
stantinople, by visits and congratulations. Turkish emis- 
jaries passing to and from Berlin never failed to stop at 
Sofia on their way. 

The Magyarorszag of March nth, 1916, announced, 
according to the Tanine of Constantinople, that the Bulgarian 
Government had decided to erect a Turkish high school at 
Sofia. Turkish schools existed already in Bulgaria, but 
only primary schools, and only in a few small provincial 
towns. The Turks of Bulgaria asked for an increase in 
the subvention allotted to their schools, and the measure 
was discussed at the Sobranie in 1916. 

The most tumultuous manifestations of Turco-Bulgarian 
amity took place on the occasion of Roumanian intervention, 
when Turkish troops joined Bulgarian troops in theDobrudja. 
The Dnevnik wrote on July 25th, 1916, in an article on the 
resignation of Sazonov : 

" Bulgaria and Turkey, whom nothing will separate hence- 
forth, were bound infallibly to enter into partnership." 

The Kambana of July 27th, 1916, said on the arrival of 
Turkish troops on the Galician front : 

" We Bulgars are proud to have at our side in this war the 
Turks, who are so loyal and so valiant. We greet their effort, 
by which they* strengthen extraordinarily the bonds of mutual 
confidence which make our alliance yet more robust." 

Touching the operations in Dobrudja, the Echo de 
Bulgarie of October 25th, 1916, wrote : 

" A strong Bulgaria in the Balkans is the most solid bulwark 



186 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

for Constantinople ; an emancipated and strengthened Turkey 
on the Bosphorus and Dardanelles is a guarantee for Bulgaria. 
The settling of an old quarrel has dispersed, as if by enchant- 
ment, the memory of former struggles, and the soldiers who, 
four years ago, met as enemies, with equal bravery on both 
sides, now march with the same dash against a common enemy. 
Turks and Bulgars know now the hurt they can do each other 
and the brilliant advantages which their united efforts can 
assure to both. To recall a similar historic event, Turkey and 
Bulgaria are now, after the lapse of a year, in the situation of 
Germany and Austria after Sadowa." 

The Narodni Prava of November 4th, 1916, said : 

" Bulgaria has not been victimised by the temptation to 
march with the troops of the Entente against the Ottoman 
capital, because Bulgaria did not wish to do any harm to her 
excellent neighbour who possesses all the resources necessaty 
to her development and progress, and who, in agreement with 
her, will know how to defend himself. The Turks and the 
Bulgarians, called by history to co-operate to-day for the protec- 
tion of their future, are obliged to rise above the sad past and 
to rear for evermore the magnificent columns of their gigantic 
temple, in which they will sing the songs of brotherhood in arms 
and the praises of those who have created their normal life, 
based on the patriotic motto : ' If there is a Bulgaria, there is 
a Turkey ; if there is a Turkey, there is a Bulgaria." 

In speaking of Bulgaro-Turkish relations, the Austro- 
Hungarian and German press does not hide the fact that 
this strange fraternity has been brought about, thanks to 
the good offices of Vienna and Berlin, and that it remains 
under their protection and tutelage. 

The Frankfurter Zeitung of September 10th, 1916, 
publishes a letter from its Constantinople correspondent, 
" O. M.," under the title, " The Turkey Question " : 

" Once freed from its Russian traditions, Bulgaria has been 
obliged by the force of things to modify its relations with Turkey. 
The Bulgaro-Russian policy would have led naturally to the 
loss of Turkish Constantinople, even though counter to Bulgarian 
interests. Russia is replaced now by Germany, who is a com- 
ponent of Bulgarian policy. This fact will lead to the preserva- 
tion of Turkey if Germany wishes it. If f®rmerly Bulgaria 
dreamed of possessing Constantinople — which is impossible 
to prove politically — she has sacrificed her dreams to the reality 
and utility of her alliance with Germany, affirming her sacrifice 
by the convention of August last year. That convention 
assured to Bulgaria — before the alliance with Germany forbade 
her to continue her policy against Turkey — a better strategic 



BULGARIAN BALKAN POLICY 187 

frontier on the side of Turkey. It is only in case of a modification 
of the relations between Germany and Turkey that Btdgarian 
policy could again be directed against Constantinople. Balkan 
policy will have its source then in Turco-German relations, 
which are confirmed at present by a military alliance, but which 
in the future, however, will not remain so unilateral." 

The Budapesti Eirlap of October 28th, 1916, said : 
" Turkey has fallen into agreement with Germany and 
Austro-Hungary, not only on the questions of a coming peace, 
but also on the important problems of a peace policy in the 
future. In the domain of new arrangements in the Balkans 
we shall meet with vestiges of Turkish influence, and it is pre- 
cisely that arrangement which will forge the last strong links 
between the East and the West." 

This means that the Austro-Germans hold Turkey 
through Bulgaria, and Bulgaria through Turkey. They 
scarcely hesitate to say so openly. It is the sturdy way of 
the Prussians of the north, the only way which enjoys the 
respect of the Prussians of the Balkans, and thanks to 
which a measure of discipline can be imposed on Bulgarian 
Balkan policy.''' 



CHAPTER XVI 

POLITICAL LIFE IN BULGARIA 

The unsound and adventurous policy of Bulgaria, the cause 
of so many deceptions, is hard to understand if we do not 
know the political life of the country, and character of the 
people. 

The fundamental error of those who entertained formerly 
— or even entertain now — illusions as to Bulgaria has been 
to consider only the labels of Bulgarian political life, instead 
of probing its depths. Passing from a condition of the 
lowest servitude to European Parliamentary life, Bulgaria 
has adapted this delicate political machinery to her environ- 
ment and habits in a way unparalleled elsewhere. After 
only a few years of independence she possessed political 
parties ticketed in European fashion. In no more than 
thirty years divergences in home politics gave birth to ten 
organised parties — there are as many to-day. They are 
the three Liberal fractions of Radoslavoff, Tontcheff and 
Stambouloff ; the popular party (Nationalist-Conservative) 
of Gueshoff, the Liberal Progressists (Daneff), the Demo- 
crats (Malinoff), the Radical Democrats (Neitcho Tsanoff), 
the Agrarians (Stamboliski and Draghieff), the Reformist 
Socialists, and the Orthodox or Extreme Socialists. 

From the beginning the groups, having a purely personal 
or clannish character, displayed no divergence of principles. 
A party was formed in protest against the reaction, the 
abuse of power and the corruption of the Government 
Party ; each new group adopted a more advanced pro- 
gramme, and in this manner all opinions, from the Right 
to the Extreme Left, were represented. Notwithstanding, 
every party when it came to power abused it more cynically 
than the one that preceded it. Having fought the old 
" Conservatives " (tchorbajis, or representatives of the 
bourgeoisie who organised the first Bulgarian Government), 

188 



POLITICAL LIFE IN BULGARIA 189 

the Liberals, with Stambouloff at their head, carried out 
the most drastic reaction known to Bulgarian history. 

This is not the only paradox of Bulgarian home politics. 
A party more advanced than the Liberals, that of the Demo- 
crats — formed to oppose the anti-Liberalism of the Liberals 
— owes its celebrity in the history of new Bulgaria, above 
all, to its scanty respect for the liberty of elections. When 
it received its mandate, the number of its deputies rose from 
4 to 170. The Government of Radoslavoff, which possesses 
the Parliamentary majority to-day, had no more when it 
took the reins in 1913 ; it disposed of only six voices in 
the Sobranie\ 

The unfortunate author of " Baya Gagno," the Bulgarian 
patriot Aleko Konstantinoff, treacherously assassinated for 
his liberalism and his incisive contribution to the study of 
the parliamentary morals of his country, puts into the 
mouth of his hero, asked if he knew how to conduct an 
electoral campaign, what follows : 

" I should not be what I am — I should not be Gagno of the 
Balkans — if I did not know that trade. Send me into no matter 
what division at your choice, let me know the candidate you 
want elected ; put up a donkey, if you like, and I will get him 
in. . . . Place at my disposal the sub-prefect and one or two 
thousand francs. . . . My poor friend ... I have only to 
pick out of the scum frequenting all the dens, forty or fifty 
liberated convicts, whom I shall distribute in the drink-shops. 
I thrust the head of each under a pail, and cry : ' Go it ! Hue ! 
Long live Bulgaria ! ' Ha, ha ! the little fish is caught ! " 

" When their nasty black eyes begin to be bloodshot, and 
they draw their knives from their girdles to stick them into the 
table, when their hoarse voices begin to bellow wild beast howl- 
ings to the sky, the terror they inspire is irresistible. . . . All 
you have to do is to take these monsters out for an airing in 
the town at night ! . . . Dare the opposition budge ? The devil 
himself would not have courage to face them ! . . . Pass in 
front of an enemy's house with this band. ... Oh ! my mother ! 
When they open their mouths you can hear them a league 
away. . . . You shudder, and your hair stands on end like 
the spines of a hedgehog. . . . Then send for the mayors and 
their assistants from the villages ; knit your brows . . . grate 
your teeth . . . wither these people with your looks, and 
show them your band ! . . . Dare the electors budge ? You 
will not see the shadow of one. From each village will come 
exactly twelve municipal councillors with their mayor. 

" Then convoke the functionaries and the employees ; 
station gendarmes to turn the other peasants back to their 



190 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

homes ; with your forty or fifty bandits lay siege to the polling- 
place ; resort to any tricks you like ; and throw into the urn 
a few sheaves of voting papers. . . . Hurrah ! The donkey is 
elected deputy ! Ha ! Ha ! Ha ! " 

This abuse of power, in a country where power is looked 
up to as absolute by people who were yesterday the slaves 
of the Turks, is a constant feature of political life. Pere 
Guerin Songeon, in his " History of Bulgaria," written in 
a spirit favourable to the Bulgars, regards the separation 
of the two first parties as a division into two clans. " Each 
of these cliques had no other object than to win and wield 
power." 

Leaders of the State, recruited among tradesmen and 
peasants hardly able to read, a few teachers, priests, and 
two or three returned emigrants or students in foreign 
universities, improvised political organisations among an 
uncultured people in no wise prepared for free political life. 
It is possible that the odious Turkish servitude inoculated 
the Bulgarian with more bad qualities than those he 
inherited from his race ; but Bulgarian politicians made 
them worse, as they did all the faults of their electors. 

This is what Songeon says about it : 

" 1,500,000 peasants, who had never heard of such a thing 
as the State, were called upon to give good governors to this 
State. The elections led fatally to the omnipotence of a party 
so soon as the party; in question confided to its adherents all 
the important offices ; and then the administrators of the 
country would think no longer of the country's interest, but 
of those of their clan ; they would tyrannise over their adver- 
saries. The result was general corruption, incessant violence, 
disunion. ..." 

Disillusioned, or confirmed in his instinctive distrust, 
the cunning Bulgarian peasant ended by seeking from 
politics merely material immediate personal profit through 
opportune deference to those who happened to be in power, 
and who might abuse it to his advantage or his ruin. There 
resulted a condition of political morals and mentality that 
could not be clearly perceived from outside, when one 
thought about Bulgarian affairs, and which has baffled the 
political discernment of the people best informed on the 
Balkan East, who, notwithstanding, paid more attention 
to the formulas and labels in Bulgaria than to her political 
and moral confusion as it really is. 

To give an idea of it, we will borrow again some passages 



POLITICAL LIFE IN BULGARIA 191 

from the work of Pere Songeon in which he sets forth the 
story of the regime of Stambouloff, whose successors govern 
Bulgaria to-day. These quotations silhouette traits most 
typical of the race ("Portrait de Stambouloff." Guerin 
Songeon, p. 353): 

" A little thick-set man, dark, with a big, rounded head 
bold features, furtive eyes, thick lips, high cheek-bones. His 
physiognomy betrayed a stubborn and surly will. His person, 
taken altogether, inspired fear. His audacity of speech and 
the tones of his sharp voice discouraged all desire for resistance. 
Launched when he was twenty into the life of a leader of comi- 
tajis, he could only have acquired very superficial learning, 
and, moreover, had no taste for study. But he knew how to 
act, and once that he had in mind a plan clearly fixed, nothing 
could turn him from carrying it out, even though in order to 
do so he had to resort to the most arrant knavery and the most 
revolting cruelty. His fierce and violent nature ignored the 
most elementary rules of humanity and equity. 

" To facilitate the task of new functionaries, one more 
inexperienced than the other, he proclaimed a state of siege. A 
numerous gendarmerie, furnished with rifles and revolvers 
of the latest pattern, were charged with fashioning public 
opinion. 

"... He took every measure to ensure that the elections 
of October 10th, 1886 (Grand Sobranie), should demolish alto- 
gether the Russian clan. Obliged to govern by universal 
suffrage, he resolved to avoid surprises. Whoever was suspected 
of covenanting with Tsankoff or Kaulbars was thrown into 
prison and soundly flogged. A committee called ' Bulgaria 
for the Bulgarians ' got together a body of gipsies armed with 
stout cudgels, and confided to them the task of keeping away 
from the electoral urns people of the adverse party. The 
gendarmes themselves distributed the voting papers of the 
official candidates, and took care that there were three times 
more votes than electors. The democratic marauders and 
their bludgeons acquitted themselves so well of their task that 
out of five hundred and twenty-two deputies there were four 
hundred and seventy Stamboulovists. Naturally this majority 
was of exemplary docility. 

" This packed government, installed by a band of partisans, 
was obliged to favour them incessantly in order to retain them ; 
after having rescued the country from anarchy there was risk 
of it falling again into worse. New dictatorial candidatures 
might spring up and throw Balgaria into bloody civil strife. 

" In order to forestall all rivalry, the Regent ordered arrests 
wholesale. In consequence of the assassination of one of his 
prefects in an election fight, he obtained thirty-six death 



192 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

sentences — of which the greater part, it is true, were com- 
muted."* 

Insignificant plots (like that of Panoff, 1887) served as 
a pretext for most brutal reprisals. 

"... The government took advantage of these incidents 
to pulverise the opposition party. Former Ministers, Tsankoff, 
Orackakoff, Nikiroroff, and Slaveikoff ; journalists like Kissimoff 
and Rizoff, imprisoned in an old mosque, were flogged with 
sticks and sandbags until they bled. The ex-Regent Karaveloff, 
nude and prone on the ground, suffered a terrible flagellation 
under the eyes of Major Panitza, Under-Secretary of the Minister 
of War." (Guerin-Songeon, pp. 371-3.) 

The political administrations of the last thirty years, 
less sanguinary and ferocious, have not employed much 
nobler means to attain the same end; the possession of 
power, commencing from the supreme grace of the sovereign 
who issues the mandate for elections to him whom he 
wishes to have as Minister. For it must not be forgotten 
that in Bulgaria there has never been a Government which 
has not succeeded in obtaining a majority, nor an opposition 
raised to power by an election. 

The possibility of such a state of affairs is evidence 
enough as to the place held by political principles in the 
policy of the Bulgarian parties. It is there we look for an 
explanation of the feebleness of the Opposition against the 
Bulgarian intervention, and its deflection and turning round 
soon after the first military successes of the policy it con- 
demned as evil a month before. These successes have 
finished by enrolling the entire Opposition in the band which 
chants in chorus to-day " Death to Serbia and Roumania," 
which desires the defeat of the Entente and Russia, German 
victory, and, above all, Great Imperialist Bulgaria in the 
Balkans, by any means and at an}' price. 

* In his book, " Bulgaria under Prince Ferdinand," the Bulgarian 
writer, Drandar, cites the following characteristic detail of the reactionary 
and Austrophil regime of Stambouloff and of the role of Austrian diplo- 
macy at Sofia (p. 93) : " The disappearance of Stambouloff was naturally 
much regretted in Austria, for when he was alive it was the Austrian 
diplomatic agent, Burian, who really directed the whole of Bulgarian 
home and foreign policy. Sometimes he passed whole days with the 
ex-dictator. This strange diplomatic agent instructed him how best 
to organise a spy system and secret police. On the death of Stambouloff 
the Commission of Inquiry found a list in which were inscribed about 
4,000 spies, well paid, of whom 400 were for the town of Sofia alone ; 
the greater part of these spies were Austrian subjects." 



CHAPTER XVII 

THE TEN BULGARIAN POLITICAL PARTIES 

Three parties are represented in the present Government, 
or rather three fractions of the old Liberals : the Rado- 
slavists, the Tontchevists, and the Orthodox Stamboulo- 
vists. 

The leader of the first group, Dr. Basil Radoslavoff, 
brought up in Germany, Russophobe, Serbophobe, faithful 
servant of King Ferdinand, has taken up the threads of 
the Stambouloff regime ; but he does not impress upon 
them the same personal stamp, being far inferior to the 
former dictator in personal aptitudes. Notwithstanding 
his very modest abilities, he has found himself charged with 
the leading role at the most important moment for Bulgaria ; 
he owes this to his position as a veteran of the party, to 
his docility, to his impersonality, and to his Russophobia. 
The perfunctory compliments of Viennese and Berlin 
journalists to the Prime Minister of Bulgaria bring into relief 
the vanity, the poverty of ideas and the vulgarity of his 
interviews and speeches in the Sobranie. His colleague in 
the Ministry, Tontcheff, formerly an advocate and actually 
Minister of Finance, is the leader of the Young Liberals, 
whom he succeeded, following on personal quarrels, in 
detaching from the Liberals of Radoslavoff and forming 
into a distinct group. Tontcheff has been, from the first 
day, King Ferdinand's man (he was one of the delegation 
which brought the Prince to Bulgaria) : he is a Germano- 
phil, suspected even of special relations with the German 
and Austro-Hungarian Legations, and known as a man 
absolutely devoid of scruples. He is regarded as indispen- 
sable in the present Government. Coburg himself inter- 
posed to reconcile Tontcheff with Radoslavoff in order to 
have them both in the Cabinet. 

The leader of the third fraction of Liberals, the real 
Stamboulovists, is Ghenadieff, formerly an advocate at 

193 



194 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Philippopolis, one of the most eloquent, intelligent and 
active of politicians. He enriched himself in 1903, when he 
formed one of the Petkoff Cabinet, and his fortune, joined 
to his audacity, his pliability, and his situation in the 
Macedonian organisation, ensured him a brilliant career. 
Germanophil like all his party, Ghenadieff contrived, how- 
ever, to pass for a " Stamboulovist on good terms with 
Russia." An adventurer, supple and unscrupulous, having 
the appearance of a man of the world, but with an under- 
standing more shallow and a weaker character than Stam- 
bouloff, Ghenadieff is, after the latter, one of the most 
interesting political figures of Bulgaria. These two men 
personify two epochs in Bulgarian politics. 

In forming the new Cabinet, King Ferdinand could not 
pass over Ghenadieff, who was his. man, whose influence 
in the Macedonian organisation he utilised for special ends — 
Ghenadieff, who was one of the signatories of the letter 
addressed to the King by the members of the Opposition 
on June 23rd, 1913, urging a change of foreign policy. 
Nevertheless, Ghenadieff had soon to resign his portfolio of 
Minister of Foreign Affairs, for Radoslavoff could endure his 
influence no longer, and the King himself judged it prudent 
to keep at a distance, in critical and decisive moments, 
a man so ambitious and turbulent. His political tour in 
Europe (in 1915), which the Sofia Government refused to 
recognise, and the fact of having been discarded from the 
new Liberal regime, cooled his Germanophil sentiments, 
which, after Goilitz and the Bulgarian intervention, com- 
promised him with his own party. A split occurred, and 
the majority chose as leader his rival, the extreme Russo- 
phobe, Dobri Petkoff. Ghenadieff s journal was suspended, 
and, suffering the lot of most Bulgarian ministers, Ghenadieff 
was haled before the tribunal on account of the Desclausieres 
affair and condemned to ten years' penal servitude. He had 
not, however, broken off relations with the Court. 

Such are the audacious adventurers, mixed up in scan- 
dalous affairs, condemned for abuses, exploiters of the 
Macedonian propaganda, agents of the Court, professional 
Russophobes and Germanophils, who govern Bulgaria at 
this moment. 

This band came to power in 1913, not only by will of 
the King and the approval of Vienna and Berlin, but also 
with the aid of the Democratic Party of Alexander Malinoff , 
a party which contributed to the abolition of the adminis- 



TEN BULGARIAN POLITICAL PARTIES 195 

tration which gave birth to the Balkan Alliance, and which, 
moreover, encouraged Ferdinand to follow the path pointed 
out by Count Tarnowsky. 



The Democratic Party came into existence, thanks to 
a split among the Liberals. After the death of Karaveloff, 
this party was an insignificant fraction, led by Malinoff, a 
lawyer at Sofia.* Malinoff is seconded by Andrew Liapt- 
cheff, a strong Turcophil, and defender of the principle 
enounced in a very trivial fashion by Karaveloff : " We 
must milk the cow w T hich- gives the most milk." He has 
also with him a provincial lawyer Michael Takeff, a man 
of little education and narrow ideas. The democratic label 
of this party did not hinder it, at the elections of 1908, from 
putting such pressure on the electors that the number of 
its deputies rose from 4 to 170, nor from entrusting the 
Ministry of Foreign Affairs to a confidant of the King, 
General Paprikoff ; Malinoff, though a " Democrat," is in 
marked favour with King Ferdinand. 

The foreign policy of the Democratic Party was most 
clearly shown in 1908 : it was Malinoff 's Government which 
proclaimed Bulgarian independence, with the support of 
Austria-Hungary, at the precise moment when the latter 
annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina. When Russia re- 
proached Bulgaria with having facilitated an act of Austrian 
conquest directed against the Slavs, and with having made 
herself a party to it, Malinoff replied by declaring to the 
Sobranie that Bulgarian polity was inspired solelv by 
Bulgarian interests. 

Although he contributed to the overthrow of the admini- 
stration of Gueshoff and Daneff, Malinoff did not succeed 
them. It was Radoslavoff who formed the new Cabinet. 
After the second Balkan war, Malinoff declared himself a 
partisan of the Quadruple Entente, and formed part of the 
Opposition. However, he was unable to resist the enthu- 
siasm provoked by the crushing of Serbia, and was one of 
the first to go over to Radoslavoff and to place; himself at 
his service. 

The Frankfurter Zeitung of December 13th, 1915, 
remarks the joyous manifestations which took place at 
Sofia on the occasion of the taking of Monastir by the 

* Malinoff, born in Bessarabia, married a Russian Jewess, who way 
established as a dentist at Odessa. 



196 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Bulgars, and cites an article in the Democratic organ, 
Preporetz, as follows : 

" Bulgaria will not make peace until she is assured by 
guarantees that she will keep all she has conquered up to the 
present, and all she may still conquer. The others may stop 
half-way ; Bulgaria, no. Our nation does its duty to itself 
and its allies. Bulgaria is firmly convinced that its allies will 
not sign a peace before the enemy has recognised Great Bulgaria 
and the union of the Bulgarian people. We must not pay 
attention to futile vapourings about peace, but, on the con- 
trary, go on winning victories." 

And in its issue of January 3rd, 1916, the Frankfurter 
Zeitung published the following telegram from Sofia : 

" Liaptcheff has declared to the Sobrani6, in the name of 
the Democrats : ' We cannot go back, and any sort of armistice 
is impossible henceforth. We are bound to continue the work 
we have undertaken. None of us must create any difficulty 
for the Government ; on the contrary, we must support it with 
all our strength. We must carry to a successful end the work 
we have begun.' " 

The Vossische Zeitung wrote on February 1st, 1916 : 
" The Democratic Party, which had Russophil leanings, is 
now working out its new programme. Its leader, Malinoff, 
is to go to Buda-Pesth, Vienna, and Berlin very shortly, to concert 
with the leading politicians." 

The Vossische Zeitung is mistaken in thinking that the 
Democratic Party is changing its programme, since the 
Democratic Party showed long ago that it was capable of 
adapting itself, as regards its foreign policy, to all combina- 
tions and every tendency. The various declarations of the 
Democrats called forth by the important events of 1916*, in 
which they outbid the most Chauvinistic opinions of Sofia, 
suffice to characterise the attitude of the Democratic Party. 
From this point of view, the Democrats have adopted a 
course purely Bulgarian. Without relinquishing in principle 
their opposition to the Government and its policy, they 
always display satisfaction with the slightest success, 
brought off no matter where and how. But in their enthu- 
siasm, instead of congratulating the Government, they 
attribute all the merit to the army. 

The Preporetz of August 25th, 1916, wrote : 
" We ought to win and we shall win ; every day marks for 
us a new stage towards victory. In order to be convinced of 

* They have been referred to in previous chapters. 



TEN BULGARIAN POLITICAL PARTIES 197 

it, it is enough to know how to read between the lines of the 
communiques of the high command, that our dear army is slowly 
but surely drawing tighter its lines round Salonica and its 
environs, where our malevolent and envious enemies are nesting." 

The same journal said on September 30th : 

" The words of the Chancellor of mighty Germany are 
menacing for England. . . . The Chancellor says we shall con- 
quer. Briand has made a similar declaration ; but the latter 
is far from having produced the same impression as that of 
the Chancellor of Germany, the country which, in the course 
of these two years, has shown in a striking manner that it can 
and knows how to conquer." 

* * 
* 

The second party in opposition, the Popular Party, 
known also as the National Party (the " Narodniaks "), 
which disputed the first place with the Democrats, has 
undergone, since August, 1915, a complete and rapid con- 
version. 

Being the oldest of the Bulgarian parties, the National 
Party had the opportunity of bringing together in a very 
short time the most remarkable men in the country, and of 
being led by the most cultured Bulgars. The National 
Party was regarded as the strongest political organisation 
of new Bulgaria. Having at its head Ivan Gueshoff, the 
successor of Stoiloff, the party, from Conservative, became 
a constitutional National Party, and took the name of the 
Popular Party. Placed at the head of the Government 
at the most decisive periods of the years 1912 and 1913, 
Gueshoff, by his personal qualities, his political experience, 
and his tact, combined the best conditions for a reasonable 
solution of the Serbo-Bulgarian problem. Unfortunately, 
that was not enough. Gueshoff did not possess the magic 
potency to mould to his will the political character of the 
Bulgars, nor to rescue from clandestine influences of the 
most arbitrary character, decisions of the greatest moment 
to the fate of the country. Not only was he unable to 
withstand the terrorism exercised by professional patriots, 
but he did not succeed in putting down intrigues and 
defections among his own immediate following. Having 
lacked strength to give the right direction from the begin- 
ning to the cause of the Serbo-Bulgarian entente, he aban- 
doned it on the eve of the catastrophe. 

On May 30th, 1913, Gueshoff resigned, as he says 



198 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

openly,* because there was " disagreement between the 
Crown and himself, "• leaving to the Government the coalition 
of his party and the Liberal-Progressist Party, with Daneff 
as chief, that is to say he unburdened himself of responsibility 
in a scarcely honourable way. Nevertheless, Gueshoff knew 
of the danger ! 

Gueshoff's party was the first to evince this same 
cowardice, and in the most pitiable fashion, in 1915, from 
the first days of the going over of the Bulgars to Germany, 
in a war against which it had thundered for a whole year. 
Since the month of October, 1915, we have had the spectacle 
of the Popular Party of Gueshoff, through its organ the Mir, 
as well as the declarations of its representatives in Parlia- 
ment, identifying itself with the policy of the Stamboulovist 
Government, collaborating with it and even lending it aid 
at the most critical moments. 

Reproducing the comments which the taking of Monastir 
had called forth in the Bulgarian press, the Frankfurter 
Zeitung of December 9th, 1915, does not hide its satisfaction 
at being able to quote the following from the Mir : 

" We possess actually nearly everything which should be 
ours. Who dare contest our right to it henceforward ? The 
English or the French ? They also are taking flight ! " 

Gueshoff himself wrote on January 14th, 1916 : 

" I am witnessing my seventh war in the Balkans. This 
is distinct from the preceding ones, inasmuch as our armed 
nation writes in it with a pen of steel new pages of history, not 
Balkan alone, but world history. If it had not paid with its 
blood and contributed its effort, the transformations which 
have surprised us during the last three months of 1915 would 
not have come about. Instrument of mundane destinies, the 
Bulgarian people is helping to determine the approaching 
destiny of the whole world. 

"... We must be careful to avoid repeating the mistakes 
which led to the catastrophe of 1913. The Government in 
the first place, and the nation in the second, must not permit 
the dissolution of the union to which we owe the miracles accom- 
plished by the Bulgarian people in arms in 1912 and 1915. 

" An American hero of the last century said : ' Our country ! 
God grant that it may be always just in its relations with foreign 
nations. But just or not — what matters ? It is our country.' 

* " My policy, which aimed at an understanding without bloodshed, 
at not letting the Balkan Alliance be broken, at having recourse to arbi- 
tration both with Serbia and Greece, was not approved." (Iv. Gueshoff, 
" L'AlHance balkanique," p. 156. Paris: Hachette. 1915.) 



TEN BULGARIAN POLITICAL PARTIES 199 

' Our country ' is, with us also, the unanimous cry y Our 
country has risen and is become great, thanks to the unanimity, 
the sacrifices, and the sufferings of her sons. Let us continue 
to aid her, in order that the sacrifices and sufferings endured 
until now do not remain unrewarded, and that the work under- 
taken may be carried to a happy conclusion. Let us aid her 
by our valour in the trenches, by our abnegation at home, 
and by our wisdom everywhere. And may our country, thus 
united and enlarged by territories of which she has need for 
her future, be illumined by. the blessings of an honourable and 
lasting peace." 

We have shown how the Gueshoff party defended its 
policy of an understanding with Serbia. In the spring of 
1916, its defection increased with the hopes of a Bulga.ro- 
German triumph. The extracts from the Mir given above 
have made it clear to us that the evolution of the Popular 
Party in foreign policy had ended in the adoption of Stam- 
boulovist plans. The Popular Party has endeavoured to 
explain its new attitude again and again, not only by 
articles in the Mir, but also by the declarations of its 
leaders. 

In reply to Roumanian comments, the Mir of August 
21st, 1916, protested in the following terms against the 
condemnation of Bulgaria pronounced by a Petrograd 
Association, the " Slavianska Vzai'mnost " : 

" It looks as though there were in Petrograd interested 
persons, surely agents of Serbia, who comprehend that the rights 
of Bulgaria over the provinces she has pist taken from Serbia are 
solid enough not to be contested, even by the Entente, if ever it 
were victorious. Therefore, can the Bulgarian people be accused 
for having taken up the defence of its rights with such unanimity 
and ardour ? Those who, before the war, were of opinion that 
it would be better to choose other means, never dreamed of 
renouncing this right of their nation. But once the means 
has been chosen, they cannot refuse their collaboration in 
carrying on the work to the end." 

That is as much as to say that the signatories of the 
entente with Serbia, those who had adjudged her right by 
treaty to the half of Macedonia, are now in accord with 
the Stamboulovists, maddest of Germanophils, in proclaim- 
ing the rights of Bulgaria over the greater part of Serbia, 
and consider it a patriotic duty to collaborate, without 
reserve and with all their might, in the fell task that Bulgaria 
has undertaken against Serbia, Russia, and the Quadruple 
Entente, and against her old friends and benefactors. 



200 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Gueshoff and Radoslavoff, the moment it is a question of 
defining the task and its justice, are in full accord. There 
was formerly divergence between them only as regards the 
means to be taken. 

The article in the Mir only repeats the opinions pro- 
claimed by its leaders in Parliament. In the course of the 
debate on the budget, in which the Popular Party saved the 
Government, Todoroff, the second in command of the 
party, declared the following {Mir, July 20th, 1916) : 

" . . . The Government has come to an understanding 
with certain States. In doing so, it has not only pledged itself, 
but also the responsibility of the entire Bulgarian nation. We 
must all see to it that the work begun is carried through to a 
successful end. When our carriage comes to a stream, we are 
free to decide by what ford it may best be crossed. But when 
once the vehicle has entered the ford, and is in the middle of 
the stream, we must put forth all our strength to reach the 
opposite bank. ..." 

The metaphor is apt : it has even distinction, and might 
deceive those who do not know that the Popular Party 
did not content itself with loyally fulfilling its civic and 
patriotic duties, but, in the new direction of policy, desired 
to rival in ardour those whom in 1915 it regarded as harmful 
adventurers. 

As for Todoroff, he did not put the question in its true 
bearings. 

When the carriage is in mid-stream it is certainly much 
more important to get it across to the bank than to ask 
by what ford one can do so. But above the question, 
By what ford ? there is the question, To which bank ? If 
Gueshoff and Todoroff propose the same objects in national 
policy as Radoslavoff, it is comprehensible that they 
should agree quickly enough as to the means of attaining 
them. There was, indeed, only one ford, that chosen by 
Radoslavoff. 

And the Popular Party took it without hesitation and 
without scruples. 

It was not patriotic duty which dictated the glorifica- 
tion of the Austro-Germans that appeared in the Mir, 
nor the attacks of that journal on the Quadruple Entente, 
and above all on England — which has lavished her favours 
on Gueshoff personally, as on his party, and on Bulgaria 
generally. It was not through patriotism that the Mir 
showered invective on Serbia, even 'after the catastrophe, 



TEN BULGARIAN POLITICAL PARTIES 201 

nor that it carried on a violent campaign against Russia, 
under whose auspices the Popular Party was founded. 
All these vile and brutal renunciations of opinions professed 
only yesterday by these same men cannot have been dic- 
tated by a sentiment of patriotic duty. They are but a 
witness to the low morality and lack of conviction in a 
political organisation which, by the names of its leaders 
and the number of educated men in its ranks, represents 
the best that present-day Bulgaria has to show. 



Among the parties in opposition, we have still to speak 
of the Progressist-Liberals, the Radical-Democrats — or 
Radicals, in brief — the Agrarians, and the two Socialist 
groups : these, both by their authority and their numerical 
importance, play a much less considerable part in the 
political life of Bulgaria than those of which we have spoken 
above. 

The Liberal Progressist Party, formerly Tsankovist, had 
always followed a Russophil policy. Its whole-hearted faith 
in Russia was expressed in the famous utterance of Daneff 
at the Sobranie : " With Russia we have no politics." 
However, the party, dismayed by the catastrophe of 1913, 
lost, its courage and also its leadership. Daneff, through 
his errors and the attacks of his political adversaries, was 
made to bear the responsibility for the disaster. He made 
the mistake, among many others, of remaining, in May, 1913, 
in the Cabinet from which Gueshoff had retired. The 
infatuation, the lack of sincerity, and the weakness which 
he displayed from the first in that equivocal situation, 
have thrown discredit on him and his party, in so far as 
concerns any role at all serious, for a long time to come. 
The party has no longer its organ, Bulgarie, which ceased to 
appear more than a year ago. On the rare occasions when 
Daneff speaks, his party only justifies the fact of its irre- 
vocable fall. 

The Berliner Tageblatt of June 20th, 1916, published a 
declaration of the Russophil Daneff, arising from the capitu- 
lation and the separate peace of Montenegro, a capitulation 
considered at Sofia, and at Vienna too, as the coup de grace 
to Russia in the Balkans. Daneff said of it : 

" The capitulation of Montenegro is a notable success for 
the Central Powers. The Montenegrin peace shows the way 



202 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

for all the little Slav nations to the cross-roadswhere Bulgaria 
has been able to choose her new path." 

According to the information of the Berliner Tageblatt 
of March 3rd, Daneff asked, in his speech in the Sobranie 
during the debate on the Budget, " not to speak of the past 
any more, but to turn to the future. . . . Russian friendship 
exists no longer, and all parties are in agreement." 

The little group of Radical Democrats (Neitcho Tsanoff), 
which was formed by a split in the Democratic Party, 
is more consistent in its ideas, and manifests wider and 
more advanced views on Balkan politics, but as it counts 
only three or four representatives in the Sobranie, it has no 
influence on the policy of the country. 

The Agrarian group has no relation to the political and 
economic organisations bearing the same name in Europe. 
It is a particular expression of the demagogues among the 
Danube peasants, and has formed no opinion on foreign 
policy. The noisy role assumed by its leader, Stamboliski, 
in his interview with the King on the eve of Bulgarian 
intervention, disclosed only theoretical pacificism and the 
leader's ambition as a tribune. The menaces addressed 
to Ferdinand by Stamboliski, rendering the King responsible 
for the war, did not hinder the Agrarian deputy, DimitrorT, 
from declaring later in the Outro, after conferring with 
Radoslavoff : 

" Since the destinies of the country are staked on a map, 
and the Bulgarian people is at the front, the Agrarian Party 
will do its duty in approving all the war credits, convinced 
that it allots them, not to the government, but to the country." 
(Frankfurter Zeitung, December 19th, 1915.) 

That is the attitude of the Agrarians since the war. 
A group of them, moreover, has joined the Government 
majority in the Sobranie. 

# He 

* 

The group of Broad Socialists (" Chiroke "), under the 
leaders Sakasoff and Pastoukoff, supports the Government 
policy unreservedly, Its representatives in the Sobranie 
have voted for all the war credits ; in home politics they 
have been in agreement, even when other Opposition parties 
were in sharp conflict with the Government (as, for example, 
concerning the Committee of Public Precaution). They are 
interested, above all, in forming a Bulgaria prepared for a 
long resistance, and with this object they work out plans 



TEN BULGARIAN POLITICAL PARTIES 203 

of " industrial mobilisation " and control of imports and 
exports. The articles on foreign policy in their organ the 
Narod habitually bear such titles as " Albion Unmasked," 
or contain assertions of this sort : 

" In the storm which has burst upon the world, Bulgaria 
has bound her destiny to that of her allies. Her people in 
arms have put forth a marvellous effort in the common cause ; 
and if, until now, they have been able to support the burden 
of war, it is thanks to their strength of will and resistance 
rather than in virtue of their modest resources." (Narod, 
April 27th, 1916.) 

In an article headed " New Cares," the Narod of May 4th, 
1916, advises an understanding with Roumania and Greece, 
by which to insure the retention of booty realised : 

" Much will have been done for our national union and the 
general peace if our diplomacy succeeds in assuring the results 
acquired with a minimum of sacrifice. Particular attention 
, should be devoted to relations with neighbouring Balkan States 
which are still neutral, but which, either of their own initiative 
or through the counsels of others, will to-morrow put forth 
their efforts on one side or the other." 

On May nth the Narod lauded to the skies Count 
Apponyi's speech when the Bulgarian deputies arrived at 
Buda-Pesth. He had already gained a reputation for 
Chauvinism in passing the schools law of denationalisation 
in Hungary. He stated in his speech that Hungarian and 
Bulgarian history displayed a common anxiety, the struggle 
for national independence. Ilia Yanouloff wrote on this 
in the Narod : 

" This statement is so exact from the historical point of 
view that the comparison of Count Apponyi derives from it a 
lustre destined to shine even in the future. ..." 

Yanouloff afterwards extolled the political wisdom, 
the combativity and the character of Apponyi : 

" It is long experience which speaks by the mouth of Count 
Apponyi. His candour is therefore characteristic ; his thought 
is instructive ; his watchword of complete national indepen- 
dence is another bridge for the drawing together of the Bulgarian 
and Hungarian peoples." 

The collaboration of Scheidemann with the Chancellor 
naturally serves as a model to Bulgarian Socialists. The 
Narod of October 18th, 1916 writes : 

"It is indisputable that of all Socialist parties the German 
one is the most strongly organised and the richest in ideas. . . . 



204 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

In the soundness of its views and the dignity of its character 
it may be compared to the greatest parties in history. . . . The 
two orators interpret two different worlds. The Chancellor 
interprets the past, Scheidemann the future. If the distance 
between the Chancellor and Scheidemann is no longer so great 
as was formerly that between the Chancellor and Bebel, it is 
because things have changed in the official policy of Germany. 
Conservative Germany has been obliged to enter on the path 
of concessions to Socialism. It is a beginning from which we 
must expect results of capital importance which will be as useful 
to the progress of Socialism as to political evolution generally."* 

In its next issue the Narod continued to develop the 
German thesis : 

" The great Russian politician, Miliukoff, in his declarations 
to the Norwegian Social-Demokratt, manifested the firm resolu- 
tion of Russia to occupy the Dardanelles in order to have an 
issue to an open sea free from ice. That is equivalent to cutting 
off Germany from Asia Minor, which Germany would not permit 
in any case. Events will lead to a compromise, and German 
has taken the first step. . . . The declarations made to the 
Reichstag show what a great advance has been made towards peace. . . . 
The utterances of Scheidemann and Spahn constitute a peace 
programme already. . . . When military operations in the 
Balkans and Roumania have terminated, the Entente can be 
convinced that the isolation of the Central Powers is a vain 
chimera." 

And on October 23rd, the Narod stated that " the struggle 
against the hegemony of England is undoubtedly founded 
on a basis of justice." 

The following day, the Moderate Bulgarian Socialists 
endeavoured to justify their opportunism from the point 
of view of principles, anathematising the internationalism 
of the Extreme Socialists : f 

" We understand how it is that the most eminent statesmen 
and politicians succeed in justifying their attitude towards 
the enemy, and caU upon the masses to carry on the struggle 
to the end ; they do so with the object of preserving the nation 
from devastation by the enemy, of rounding off their States 
from a national standpoint, of destroying the military power of 

* The Rabotnitcheski Vcstnik (organ of the Extreme Socialists) of 
September 28th, 1916, remarks with irony the parity of ideas in the 
dithyrambs addressed to the German Government Socialists by the organ 
of the Stamboulovist Government Narodni Prava, the Nationalist Oppo- 
sition journal Mir, and the Socialist sheet Nwrod. 

+ The Broad Socialists are not less annexationists than the re- 
actionary Chauvinists ; they do not hesitate to support the Bulgarian 
claims to the occupied Serbian provinces. (Narod, February 19th, 1917.) 



TEN BULGARIAN POLITICAL PARTIES 205 

adversaries, and of insuring to all the freedom of the seas, which 
until now have been dominated only by certain States. Recognising 
the importance of these reasons, we cannot follow our Extreme 
Socialists when they imagine they are all the more Socialists 
and pacificists the more they regard with indifference the fate 
of the country and the solution of the various problems in 
close relation with the war, a solution that is indispensable to 
the re-establishment of peace in Europe." 

On November 9th the Narod places on the index the 
anarchism of the Extreme Socialists : 

"... The anarchism of our Extreme Socialists plays the 
part of an epidemic germ incontestably. It poisons not only 
the atmosphere of our working classes, but that of the whole of our 
political and social life." 

We must not be astonished to find the organ of the 
Bulgarian Moderate Socialists propagating " national round- 
ing off " of Bulgaria and the German " freedom of the seas." 
But it has gone further : it deemed it useful, on the occasion 
of Hindenburg's jubilee, to hold him up as an example to 
Bulgarian youth. 

The second fraction of Bulgarian Socialists, the doc- 
trinaires and irreconcilables, called Narrow Socialists 
(" tesni " ; leader, Blagoieff), is in principle against war, 
but its opposition is limited to demonstrating theoretically 
that the war has been brought about by capitalism and 
imperialism. Its organ, Rabotnitcheski Vestnik, dare not 
touch German militarism and may only write on " English 
Imperialism " and " The Policy of Russian Conquest." As 
a result, the Government organs are afforded every facility 
for reproducing these articles, often, with lively satisfaction, 
as a proof of the impeccability of Radoslavoff 's policy, which 
has had to ally itself with Germany precisely because of 
" English imperialism " and the " Russian danger." (See, 
for instance, the Rabotnitcheski Vestnik of April '21st, and 
the Narodni Prava of April 22nd, 1916.) 

During the visit of the Bulgarian Governmental deputies 
to the capitals of the Central States, the Rabotnitcheski 
Vestnik of May 12th, 1916, published a very interesting 
article on the relations between Bulgaria and the Central 
Powers : 

" Bulgaria already enjoyed the sympathy of Austria-Hungary 
and Germany, especially since the revolution of 1886 until 
1895, when she broke off her relations with Russia and became 
openly hostile to the latter. . . . The Balkan Alliance of 1912, 



206 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

founded on the initiative and under the auspices of Russia, 
was calculated to sway the European balance in favour of the 
Entente. . . . But events, controlled by the principal factor of 
the present Bulgarian policy, took, in consequence of the war 
between the allies, such a direction that the Balkan Alliance 
was broken, and Bulgaria, disabused and disillusioned as to 
Russia, sought powerful protection elsewhere, and found it 
in the Central Powers. The actual Bulgarian policy has led 
at length to open alliance with the Central Powers, and to the 
great military victories which have raised Bulgaria to the rank 
of the first Balkan State, and have terminated brilliantly, for 
the moment at least, the action of the Central Powers in the 
Balkans." 

The article ends with a platonic wish for a federal demo- 
cratic Balkan Republic. 

Russophobia has brought together the Bulgarian 
Extreme Socialists and the reactionaries (Stamboulovists) 
into the same line of endeavour. 

On June 26th, 1916, the organ of the Extreme Socialists 
asserts that " the Russophil coalition which ruled Bulgaria 
in 1912 had created an artificial movement of Serbo-,Bul- 
garian rapprochement, " and that Tsarism, triumphant, 
rubbed its hands with satisfaction when Bulgaria was 
precipitated into the catastrophe of 1913." 

The Rabotnitcheski Vestnik of August 30th, 1916, is 
certain, like the Narodni Prava, that the dispute touching 
the revision of the Serbo-Bulgarian treaty was revived by 
the Russian Government, which did not wish to create a 
Great Bulgaria that might be an obstacle to its plans of 
conquest on the Bosphorus. 

On November 6th, 1916, the Rabotnitcheski Vestnik 
wrote under the heading " The Russian Danger " : 

" The Russian peril menaces to-day the liberty and inde- 
pendence of the Balkan peoples. They must awaken to the 
danger, Bulgaria above all. Russia is breaking down with 
her own hands the idols of Russophilism that her agents had 
set up in Bulgaria. The Balkan peoples cannot breathe freely 
until they see at their feet the idol overthrown, and their inde- 
pendence protected by a wall against Russia." 

It is thus that the only one of the ten Bulgarian parties 
which had remained in irreconcilable opposition to the 
Government found means to render service to the actual 
regime in the most delicate of questions — that of action 
against Russia. 



CHAPTER XVIII 

THE FAILURE OF THEORIES 

The Bulgarian parties of opposition have taken up various 
attitudes. Either they have abandoned their old standpoint 
and adhered to the policy of the Government, or else they 
have thought fit to remain undecided, wavering, and to 
drop out of the struggle ; or, again, they have been content, 
like the Extreme Socialists, to maintain a theoretical and 
platonic opposition. But it is abundantly evident that, 
from the very beginning, the Bulgarian Opposition allowed 
Ferdinand's Government full and entire freedom of move- 
ment, from every point of view. Government circles have 
proved and recognised this repeatedly. According to the 
Vossische Zeitung of November 22nd, 1915, the Minister 
of Finance, Tontcheff, declared on the subject of the internal 
condition of Bulgaria : 

" Parties, with us, were divided before the war. There 
were partisans of the Entente. After the victories of the 
Bulgarian Army in Serbia and Macedonia, such enthusiasm 
took hold of all parties, without exception, that now they all 
unreservedly approve of the policy of the Bulgarian Govern- 
ment and the King. There exists in Bulgaria to-day only one 
political programme — National Union." 

In an interview published in the Frankfurter Zeitung 
of January 8th, 1916, the Minister of Finance, Tontcheff, 
declared : 

" All parties are agreed to persevere along the road already 
taken until they have attained the end, which is the union of 
the nation. The leaders of the Opposition have declared them- 
selves ready to support the Government until this object is 
realised. Russophil policy is done with. Even the politicians 
who were fervent partisans of Russia now acknowledge that 
there can be no turning back. The Extreme Socialists alone 
remain faithful to their pacificist principles. Such criticism 
as there has been has not aimed in any way at the general trend 
of the policy. The Opposition sought only to prepare the 
ground for the party propaganda which will take place later. ..." 

207 



208 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

According to a despatch from Sofia which appeared in 
the Frankfurter Zeitung of December 30th, 1915, General 
Boiiadjieff said to a writer in the Mir : 

" When I was Minister of War, I heard vehement speeches 
in the Sobranie in which members of different parties attacked 
each other violently. It is no longer the case. At present 
there are no longer traitors and patriots ; all are patriots." 

The Mir of March 30th, 1916, wrote on the closing 
of the session of the Sobranie : 

" The Opposition has already sufficiently proved to the 
Government that it is more than ever disposed to support it 
to the utmost, so long as exceptional circumstances exist. The 
Government should profit by these good resolutions in sub- 
mitting for debate several bills, having for their object the satis- 
faction of national and general needs." 

To show how little the real state of things responded 
to these illusions, it will be sufficient to take the issue of the 
Parliamentary struggle which took place in the Sobranie 
in June, 1916, and which has served as a pretext for so many 
legends. The Bulgarian Government submitted its Budget 
to the Sobranie on July 7th, 1916. The Opposition groups 
discussed it for several days ; the debate, indeed, was 
reduced to a political tourney on home questions arising in 
the Order of the Day, and ended in a duel between the two 
greatest parties of the Opposition, the Popular Party 
(Gueshoff) and the Democratic Party (Malinoff). They 
began by discussing if they should grant to the Government 
only a single twelfth, provisionally, or several twelfths, 
and in the middle of the debate the Democratic group posed 
as a condition that before the Budget the Government 
should pass the bill for public precaution. This demagogic 
manoeuvre of the Democrats was foiled by the Popular 
Party, which voted for the Budget unconditionally. 
Here are the comments of the press thereupon : 
The Mir of July 20th, 1916, wrote (after having drawn 
the famous comparison between Bulgaria and the carriage 
at the ford in mid-stream) : 

" I confess I am not satisfied with the home policy of the 
Government ; nevertheless, we ought to abstain from petty 
criticism, from condemning the authors of such and such an 
act, for there is danger in doing so at this juncture. To-day 
it is our desire that the Government should maintain the neces- 
sary prestige, so long as the situation created by the war exists. 
We do not demand the removal of the Government. At present 



THE FAILURE OF THEORIES 209 

we must not talk of majority and minority. The Government 
ought to seek the co-operation of the Opposition for useful 
work in the Sobranie. We have need of complete unanimity 
to assure the triumph of law and morality, and to prepare a 
happy future for our fatherland." 

The Preporetz of July 30th said : 

" Thus ended a Parliamentary struggle conducted with 
such great interest, and followed with such profound attention 
by public opinion. Those who,had voted for it, like the Popular 
Party, (the Narodniaks), abandoned it at the most critical 
moment. The Government is now freed from Parliamentary 
pressure. And it is the Narodniaks who have freed it." 

The Narod of July 21st (Reformist Socialist) declared : 

" M. Teodoroff refused to discuss the foreign policy which 
to-day is no longer the policy of M. Radoslavoff, but of the whole 
Bulgarian nation ; this policy must be carried through success- 
fully, supported by all. . . . Teodoroff quitted the Parliamentary 
tribune in triumph, acclaimed by his party, by the govern- 
mental deputies, and by the Ministers themselves." 

The Rabotnitcheski Vestnik of July 20th (Orthodox 
Socialist) said : 

" The Ghenadieff group, arraigned before the tribunal on 
account of the Desclausieres affair, is endeavouring to exert 
strong pressure on the Government to quash the judicial pro- 
ceedings against this group. Ghenadieff believes he will attain 
his object by going over to the Opposition and diminishing the 
Government majority. This situation, created by Ghenadieff, 
is exploited by the Democratic Party in order to obtain two or three 
portfolios in the Cabinet. Indeed, the action of the cabals 
might have brought about a Ministerial crisis if the Narodniaks 
had not come in to aid in saving the situation." 

The Rabotnitcheski Vestnik of July 22nd wrote : 

" M. Teodoroff declared that he had no wish to speak of 
foreign policy. Nevertheless, by the aid he has lent the Govern- 
ment, allied with the Central Powers, he has done much more for 
the foreign policy than the Democrats have done. The leaders 
of the Democrats have put forth superhuman efforts in order 
to win favour in high quarters at Sofia ; with this object they 
went even to Berlin, and do not hesitate to barter the ' Russo- 
phil ' label of their foreign policy for that of ' German ophil.' 
Their schemes were frustrated by their intense desire to gain a, 
few Ministerial offices. It was not the Democrats but the 
Narodniaks who won foreign sympathy in the Central Empires. 
Teodoroff vanquished his adversaries in home as in foreign 
politics, and, leaping over the Democrats, reached, at a bound, 



210 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the place which the latter failed to attain in spite of efforts 
maintained for months." 

In an article of the Rabotnitcheski Vestnik of August 20th 
the Socialist leader, Blagoieff, hits the nail on the head by 
repeating that " the cause which the Bulgarian parties in 
opposition were ready to support was that of the Government 
policy." He pours scorn on the pitiable posture of the 
Opposition in the Sobranie and all the sophisms employed 
to present this cause as not depending on the Government, 
under the pretext that it belongs to Bulgaria. 

Let us conclude with this article from the Narodni 
Prava of August 15th, 1916 : 

" All the parliamentary groups voted unanimously for the 
clauses of the law upon public precaution. By this vote Parlia- 
ment demonstrated the accord existing between it, the Govern- 
ment and the people, as to the accomplishing of great national 
tasks. There is no discord among the Bulgarian people, as the 
enemies of Bulgaria falsely maintain. On the contrary, there 
is a reign of union and general and mutual understanding." 

* 

The failure of Bulgarian political theories was not 
limited to sophisms and to the pitiable attitude of the 
bourgeois parties. Bulgarian Socialists furnished worse 
examples, as we have already shown. 

The Stockholm Socialist Conference (called " the con- 
ference of commercial travellers of the Central Empires," 
by Adler fits, who attempted the life of Count Sturgkh) 
provided the Bulgarian Socialists with an opportunity for 
proving their fidelity to principles, justice and truth. 

It needs not be said that the admirers of Scheidemann 
and Hindenburg placed themselves at the service of the 
Germano-Bulgarian cause at Stockholm on the first appeal 
of the Government of Coburg. Before leaving, the leader 
of the Governmental Socialists, Yanko Sakazoff, " is con- 
ferring with the President of the Council, Radoslavoff " 
(Balkanska Pochta, April 25th). The Socialist collaborators 
of the reactionary government proposed to " make a tour 
of the neutral countries, to inform the international Socialist 
organisations on the rights of Bulgaria, and declare to them 
that peace without annexations does not signify that the Bul- 
garians should abandon the Serbian and Roumanian regions 
actually occupied by their troops." {Balkanska Pochta, 
April 25th.) 



THE FAILURE OF THEORIES 211 

Their organ, Narod, wrote on April 23rd, " once for all 
the Balkans must be set in order by a reasonable interpre- 
tation of the formula, peace without annexation." Accord- 
ing to the Outro of April 26th, " the deputy Yanouloff has 
declared that the form of peace without annexation recently 
accepted by Russian and German Socialists must be sub- 
mitted to correction, as applied to Bulgaria." The Kambana 
of April 27th formulates this idea, concluding : 

" It follows that when we speak of the renunciation of all 
annexation on the part of the Central Powers, it does not mean 
that we think of leaving Macedonia, Dobrudja, and the Morava 
under the talons of their old tyrannies." 

The Zaria of April 28th announces the final composition 
of the delegation of Broad Socialists (reformists) in which 
are Sakazoff, Djidroff, Sakaroff, Pastoukoff, Tsankoff and 
Yanouloff, and the Balkanska Pochta of the same date 
says, " the doctrinaire Socialists (Narrow) will not take part 
in the Stockholm Conference, seeing that they do not 
consider it a Socialist Conference."* 

As for the Broad Socialists, they surpassed the bourgeois 
party in Chauvinism. In the Deutsche Tageszeitung of 
May 2nd, Count Reventlow is enthusiastic over the attitude 
of the Bulgarian Socialists. 

" The Bulgarian Socialist," says Reventlow, " is not cor- 
rupted by internationalism. . . . The Bidgarians ask for a 
Bulgarian peace only, in order to attain a Balkan peace. Let it 
be said, by the way," concludes Reventlow, " that we hope 
German Socialists may be inspired by the. same political sense 
and the same national instinct as the Bulgarian Socialists." 

As they were about to enter the train on their way to 
Berlin and Stockholm, the Bulgarian Socialist delegates 
declared to the editor of the Outro : 

" Although far from Bulgaria, we are firmly resolved never 
to forget that we represent the Bulgarian people. We shall 
declare that the right of Bulgaria must be recognised to rule 

* The question of the Stockholm Conference provoked a vehement 
polemic between the two Socialist groups. The doctrinaires styled the 
reformists, agents of the government policy (Rabotnitchesky Vestnik), 
and the reformists retorted by calling the doctrinaires " agents provo- 
cateurs." The doctrinaires decided, all the same, to take part in the 
Conference b}' delegating their two representatives, Kirkoff and Kolaroff. 
The activity of the latter in conferences with German Socialists at Berlin, 
as at Stockholm, is known only through the denunciatory despatches 
of their enemies, the reformists, who overwhelm them with coarse insults, 
thus allowing us to guess that the doctrinaire group did not consent to 
lend itself, without reservations, to the role of governmental agents, 



212 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

in Macedonia, Dobrudja, and generally in the countries she has 
conquered at the price of such heavy sacrifices. " (Outro, 
May 3rd, 1917.) 

The Narod (Socialist Reformist organ) of May 12th 
publishes a despatch from Berlin, in which the Bulgarian 
Socialist delegates speak of conferences held in the precincts 
of the Reichstag with the central committee of the German 
Social-Democratic Party. " The Bulgarian delegates stated 
their case in detail ; it was received with approbation," 
says the despatch. 

The Narod of May 21st publishes a letter from its 
friends at Stockholm in which they remark with satisfaction 
that the Berlin comrades do not consider the Bulgarian 
territorial pretensions as annexations. The leader of the 
group, the deputy Dr. Nikola Sakaroff, declares in the 
Dages Nyheter (telegram to the Berliner Tageblatt, May 25th) 
that the Bulgarian Socialists demand the Dobrudja and 
Macedonia. 

" As in the Timok valley, the Socialists will not make it a 
sine qua non. But they demand, absolutely, in the environs 
of Orsova and Palanka, therefore in the Negotin-Tekija angle, 
a corridor in order to have direct communication with the Austro- 
Hungarian monarchy." 

The Bulgarian Socialists consent with the same magnani- 
mity as the Germano-Bulgarian Government of Sofia, to 
the patching up of Serbia with the remnants of her mangled 
body and of Montenegro. 

In this plan of the Bulgarian Socialists we can only 
perceive the realisation of the war aims of the most impla- 
cable Chauvinists of the reactionary parties, that is to say : 

The Bulgarian people, ethnically the least numerous in 
the Balkans, masters of the peninsula ; 

The Serbian people, the most numerous, enslaved, three- 
quarters of them to Germans, Hungarians, and Bulgars, 
the remaining quarter constituted into the semblance of a 
State, " which would be only a dummy " in the political life 
of the Balkans. (See Zaria, March 15th, 1917) ; 

And, in fine, the realisation of the scheme of " Mittel- 
European " unity. 

With such a fashion of professing Socialism, it was not 
difficult for the Bulgarian Socialists to win the confidence 
of Coburg and to merit the compliments of Count Revent- 
low. 



THE FAILURE OF THEORIES 213 

" Liberals " ruling by the cudgel, traditional Russophils 
transforming themselves, in a twinkling, into Germano- 
phils, Democrats kneeling before Coburg, Socialists annexa- 
tionists and admirers of Hindenburg — there you have the 
Bulgarian parties, Elections which have never given a 
majority except to those who hold power ; the play of 
personal ambitions and cabals ; facings-round and sudden 
changes ; all party activity concentrated in the seeking of 
stratagems apt to gain for them power, no matter how, or 
to hinder, at all cost, the rival party from attaining it — 
there you <have parliamentarism. The same absence of 
principles — the lack of faith in a national idea, always 
arbitrary, improvised, and subject to occasional fluctuations 
of policy — going, at need, as far as the disavowal of the 
character of the race — there you have. the national con- 
science. 

This chaos of public life has found its faithful portrait 
in the Bulgarian press, noisy, cynical, intriguing, low in 
tone and worse in style, of shady morality, a press whose 
leading articles are based on scandalous tittle-tattle, which 
treats policy as a personal affair, and which is at the service 
of everything — and everybody — rather than at the service 
of truth. 

In his pamphlet, Die Kulturpolitische Mission Bulgariens 
(1916), the friend of the Bulgars, Dr. Paul Ostwald, writes : 

" From a political standpoint the Bulgarian people generally 
is not yet mature. . . . Political parties serve the selfish ends 
of their chiefs, who retail to the masses anything which comes 
into their heads. The great masses have not sufficient civic 
education to form independent opinions. But time will do what 
is necessary as education penetrates the masses. The Bulgarian 
press, which has been up to the present entirely dependent and 
venal, will be reformed also." 

This opinion on the venality of the Bulgarian press is 
confirmed by a letter of the Bulgarian publicist, Leon 
Savadjian, in the Genevois of October 3rd, 1916. Speaking 
from expert knowledge, the Bulgarian writer asserts that 
the press of his country, from the reactionary organs to 
those of the Extreme Left, has allowed itself to be bought 
by foreigners. " Thus," he says, " the Kambana is subsi- 
dised for a sum of 15,000 marks, and an attache of the German 
Legation is on the staff in the position of censor." Savadjian 
gives details quite as compromising about the journals 
Balkanska Pochta, Dnevnik, Outro and others, which are at 



214 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the service of Berlin or Vienna. The organ of the Russian 
Cadets, Rietch of Petrograd, has drawn up a series of accusa- 
tions of the same nature against the Popular Party of 
Gueshoff and its organ the Mir. (Letters of the corre- 
spondent Yazwitzky in the Rietch of May 8th and 15th, 
1916.) 

These illustrations and vivid portraits need no further 
comment. Public life in Bulgaria, the character of political 
parties, and the small esteem in which they hold their 
theoretical labels, enable us to rate at its true value the 
possibility of those reforms in which certain circles still 
continue to believe. 



CHAPTER XIX 

FERDINAND OF COBURG 

In speaking of Bulgaria, we always begin by naming 
Ferdinand of Coburg. Yet the King's personality scarcely 
suffices to furnish material for a special chapter. In this, 
as in other things, the legend is not in agreement with the 
reality. 

Without even taking into consideration genealogical 
data on its sovereigns, the Bulgarian story is plain to those 
who have discerned, in our series of Bulgarian self-drawn 
portraits, the fundamental traits of character and tempera- 
ment of this nation — traits recognised in all its acts, all its 
tendencies and all its passions. Nevertheless, if these 
fugitive words outline a silhouette resembling Ferdinand of 
Coburg, it can only be by an eventual and inevitable agree- 
ment. Under another sovereign, Bulgaria would have been 
perhaps less Bulgarian than she is, but if she has become 
what she is actually, the merit or the blame falls on Coburg 
in so far only as the concordance of character between 
sovereign and people has permitted both to manifest 
themselves fully. 

Elected on July 7th, 1887, Ferdinand of Coburg found 
himself on the 10th of that month at Roustchouk on 
Bulgarian territory, to the stupefaction of all the Great 
Powers, who anticipated a much slower procedure in 
consequence of the opposition of Russia. The young 
lieutenant of hussars threw himself boldly into the adven- 
ture. And in the midst of the chaos that his banished pre- 
decessor, the Prince of Battenberg, had left behind him, 
Ferdinand continued the adventurous policy of Stambouloff, 
the policy of violence within and the support of Austria- 
Hungary without. 

Both were the expression of the same tendencies : 
emancipation from all rivalry and all tradition. In home 
politics, the lieutenant of Hungarian Hussars was pleased 

215 



216 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

to keep a tight rein ; in foreign policy, the ambitions of 
the founder of the new branch of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha were 
cramped by the boundaries, restricted beforehand, of a 
Bulgaria limited to its national domain in harmony with the 
great Slav family and Russia. As his complacent biogra- 
pher, the Rev. Pere Guerin Songeon says : " He was 
devoured by a splendid desire to serve while reigning and 
to make history.* To satisfy this he had only to take advan- 
tage of the passions of the country and to profit by the 
experience of the policy of cudgels and flagellation. " Stam- 
bouloff was indispensable to him. The greatness and terror 
of the name of this Warwick of the Balkans constituted a 
precious safeguard for the crown. ... So Ferdinand found 
himself constrained to endure intimacy with this odious 
but useful man,"f says the historian, not neglecting to 
correct this attenuation of facts on the following page in 
which he praises the cleverness of Coburg : " Possessing 
in the highest degree the sense of utility, he sought patiently 
the best means of using, for the good of the principality, 
political passions and individual appetites."! 

What this diligence in exploiting public passions and 
individual appetites comprises, what means this utilitari- 
anism of the Stambouloff school employs, and what share it 
has in the formation of public morals in Bulgaria, we will 

explain briefly. 

* * 
* 

Thrown into a primitive environment of provincial 
bourgeois, rude, uncultured, distrustful and unsociable, 
Coburg set himself the task, from the first day, of hastening 
the education of Bulgarian society, at least of that of Sofia. 
It appeared to him really necessary, at least in such measure 
as would give his Court an entourage and Sofia the aspect of 
a capital. And he undertook this education in accordance 
with the ideas he imported to Bulgaria along with his 
uniform of a Hungarian hussar. 

The same feverish haste with which they set to work 
pulling down the kiosks of the Turkish country town of 
yesterday to make room for avenues and boulevards lined 
with modern edifices, possessed the Court in improvising 
as swiftly as possible the high life of Sofia. In order to do 

* " Histoire de la Bulgarie," p. 377. 
f Ibid., p. 378. 
% Ibid., p. 380. 



FERDINAND OF COBURG 217 

so, it became necessary not only to hurry the emancipation 
of patriarchal Bulgarian society, by the rules of which the 
wives and daughters of Coburg's highest dignitaries remained 
all day shut up in their houses — their heads wrapped in 
the shamia (Turkish, kerchief) and their feet thrust into 
babooshes (heel-less slippers) — but to expedite transfor- 
mations in the economic habits of the Bulgar, parsimonious 
by nature. To attain this object and to attach people to 
himself, Ferdinand facilitated the rapid enrichment of his 
courtiers by every means.* 

Money accruing" from the State could alone accomplish 
this revolution in life and manners, this sudden leap from 
patriarchal simplicity to worldly display, from austere 
economy to imposing luxury. And, indeed, in a few years 
only, Sofia was transformed and decked with palaces of 
citizens grown rich through Government contracts, with 
villas of ministers and generals, penniless hitherto, who had 
blossomed into millionaires in a day. Wealthy, thanks to 
the Court, this new society, although divided into various 
political parties, was in its entirety devoted to the Court, 
the source of good and ill fortune. We must remember 
this, if we seek to define Bulgarian political motives. The 
fact, however, that there does not exist in the Balkans (if 
we except Constantinople) a similar example, even in like 
circumstances, shows that it is not due to one man, but to 
the coming together of two identical inclinations. The 
beginning of this systematic corruption is to be sought for 
in the first seven years of Ferdinand's reign, under the 
Government of Stambouloff (1887-1894). That period 
brought to Bulgaria the generation of the most immoral 
intellectuals, to the Bulgarian people the most corrupt 
functionaries, to the Court a crowd of courtiers from all 
grades of society, docile agents, fitted for every employ, 
from that of Minister to that of spy, and to Bulgarian public 
life temperaments and a mentality from which political 
organisations, even those most advanced in the matter of 
principles, have not yet been able to free themselves. 

In order to modernise and attenuate the methods of 
Stambouloff, Ferdinand has replaced his brutal and audacious 
violence by a vast network of Court influence and intrigue. 

* It is of interest to compare the Coburg regime with that of the 
last Obrenevitches in Serbia, King Milan and King Alexander, whose 
Ministers and dignitaries, whilst having enjoyed the favour of the Court, 
and having devoted their career to the service of its policy, remained 
poor. 



218 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

To render these ties more solid, the Court takes advantage 
of all patriotic movements, principally of the Macedonian 
organisation, which is kept going, naturally, at the expense 
of the State. By its secret patronage of this organ of 
revolutionary terror, which has been used injrecent years 
much more -in J home politics than J for |the Macedonian 
question, the Court has contrived to extend by terrorism the 
corrupting influence it already exercised by favours. Every- 
one in Bulgaria knows that several notorious crimes have 
been committed under the same auspices as those under 
which certain rapid and sensational fortunes have been 
made. 

The compromising of politicians is also among the noble 
methods used in Bulgarian politics. It is permitted to rob 
but not to conceal the robbery. Sooner or later the abuse 
is made public, the culprits are tried and sometimes con- 
victed ; but they never expiate their crime. Ferdinand 
always intervenes just in time to save his man, whose con- 
science he thus enchains for ever. 

Who, in Bulgaria, has not been suspected, accused and 
tried ? 

The President of the Council, Radoslavoff , was impeached 
for having enriched himself illegally during his tenure of 
office. Coburg restored him to liberty before the trial 
ended. The leader of the second fraction of the Liberals, 
the present Minister of Finance, Tontcheff, was mixed up 
in the famous case of the purchase of defective railway 
waggons. He was accused, convicted, and pardoned by 
the grace of Ferdinand. Ghenadieff, long before the 
Desclausieres affair, which procured him ten years' penal 
servitude, was placed in the dock for embezzlement. This 
served as an apparent pretext for Ferdinand and Rado- 
slavoff to have him removed from the present Cabinet. 
Dr. Goudeff, who succeeded Petkoff as President of the 
Council, ended (as well as all the members of his Cabinet, in- 
cluding Ghenadieff) by being arraigned for theft. The 
Minister Ivantcheff, a friend of Tontcheff, was prosecuted, 
with his brother, for illegal gains. General Ratcho Petroff, 
of whom it was said on all sides that " he could not have 
contrived to amass the half of his fortune, even if he had 
been born with a general's pay and had lived 150 years 
without spending a farthing," was also accused, and then, 
like so many others, liberated before the end of the trial. 
General Savoff , too, was prosecuted for fraudulently-acquired 



FERDINAND OF COBURG 219 

wealth. The leader of the National Party, Gueshoff, was 
suspected, without doubt wrongly, of misuse of benevolent 
funds, and the leader of the Progressists, Daneff, remains 
still under the threat of judicial proceedings for the catas- 
trophe of 1913, for which the real culprits seek to make him 
responsible. The former Democratic Minister, Liaptcheff, 
has been accused of misappropriation, etc., etc. As we have 
said already, to pass from the ministerial bench to the dock 
is the rule, and every Government discovers some impli- 
cation to muzzle at least a portion of the opposition. The 
principle of government in Bulgaria would appear to be : 
" Divide and expose in order to govern." 

The great Bulgarian patriot and writer, Anton Drandar, 
says on this subject in his jubilee book, " Bulgaria under 
Prince Ferdinand, 1887-1908 " (Brussels, 1909), page 123 : 

" On the death of the former Prime Minister, Theodore 
Ivantchoff,* the Stamboulovist Minister then in power decreed 
a national funeral for the deceased, as though to reward him 
for his misdeeds. Such an honour is only due, and ought only 
to be accorded, to men who have really deserved well of their 
country, and not to those who have thought solely of their 
personal interests. Thus, in Bulgaria, are rewarded men who 
have been tried and convicted by their peers. With such a 
system, we must not be astonished to see one day the colleagues 
of the deceased Minister Ivantchoff return to power. If such 
a scandal occurs, Bulgaria, which pretends to a royal crown, 
will have the right only to an imperial crown of degradation 
and political corruption." , 

Well, Bulgaria has put on that imperial crown of 
degradation and corruption, and it is precisely the col- 
leagues of Ivantchoff in the Ministry and in the dock — 
Radoslavoff and Tontcheff — who are to-day its two brightest 

jewels. 

* * 
* 

The organisation, the etiquette, and the customs of the 
Coburg Court — a combination of the little, pretentious 
Courts of Germany and the mysterious seraglios of Sultans 
— betrayed from the first the notion with which Coburg 
had come to Sofia, and for the realisation of which he had 
found, it must be admitted, the most suitable of soils. 
The pretentious Court of Sofia imitates at once the pompous 
ceremony of the Habsburgs and the oriental ostentation of 
a rajah. Decorations, sleeve-links, scarf-pins, gold snuff- 

* Ivantchoff died at Mentone (France), and was buried at Sofia. 



220 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

boxes with the initials of Ferdinand have been scattered 
all over Europe. 

The Civil and Military Cabinet of the King was a nursery 
of soldiers and diplomats, who, after serving there under the 
eye of Coburg, passed from the Court to other confidential 
posts — continuing, in fact, the same service.* The Court 
extends and ramifies outwards in a sort of larger camarilla, 
thanks to which it can spread its vast network of influence, 
intrigue, corruption and espionage over Sofia and the whole 
country. 

In this camarilla, in the broad sense of the word, the 
first place is occupied by the imitators of the old group of 
Stambouloff, the leaders and soldiers of the present Liberal 
regime, presided over by Radoslavoff , Tontcheff and Petkoff 
(formerly by Ghenadieff). Mention must be made, too, 
of the phalanx of the King's men of confidence, occupying 
all ranks in diplomacy, from the oldest to the youngest, 
and among them the old Natchevitch, Dr. Stantchoff, 
Simeon Radeff, Tchaprachikoff, General Markoff, Ratcho 
Petroff, Paprikoff, Nikolai'eff, Tantiloff, Savoff, the repre- 
sentatives of patriotic organisations, as formerly Ghenadieff, 
Matthias Gheroff, General Protogeroff, the Chauvinist 
professor Miletitch, the Director of Posts, Stoianovitch ; 
a German Jew representing Krupp, and an honorary citizen 
of Sofia, Kaufmann ; an Austrian Jew, Chief of the Press 
Bureau, Herbst, etc., etc. 

This wire entanglement of personal politics is inseparable 
from another in which are intermingled the wires of party 
policy, quite as capricious, and sometimes as personal, 
treacherous, corrupting and narrow. All this is but the 
expression of the same environment and the same habits. 
The same men often serve the two policies. One might sup- 
pose that a wi?e monarch of simpler manners and saner 
ideas would have used nobler means to attract people to 
him, and that in choosing men he would have had loftier 
objects in view. However, one can accuse Ferdinand of 
Coburg only of having nourished, whilst drawing advantage 
from them, the weakness and error which already existed. 
His role consisted in " turning passions and individual 
appetites to the public good," such as he conceived it, and 
according to the ideas he had brought from the Habsburg 

* The chief of the King's Cabinet, and the factotum of the Court 
for the last twenty years, is Dobrovitch, a Levantine, brought up at 
Constantinople, and married to a German. 



FERDINAND OF COBURG 221 

monarchy. He has served public interests in Bulgaria as 
they were served before him. 



Ferdinand of Coburg has introduced nothing new into 
the means nor into the aims of Bulgarian policy since he 
has directed it. An ex-lieutenant of hussars under Francis 
Joseph, he has certainly been a devoted and grateful 
champion of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans and of Pan- 
Germanism in the East ; but the Austro-Germanophil 
current in Bulgarian policy not only preceded the election 
of Coburg, but was a determining cause of it. In remaining 
Austrophil, Ferdinand of Coburg has been faithful to the 
opinions of his electors, who doubtless saw in his Austro- 
phil sentiments his chief title to become prince of Bulgaria. 

Austrians and Germans have never omitted to lay stress 
on the important role of King Ferdinand, who served as a 
tie between the Central Powers and Bulgaria.* It is indis- 
putable that this tie was strong, but it was not the only 
one. When he arrived in Bulgaria, Coburg perceived with 
satisfaction that there was a current of ideas which it was 
his duty as a German to utilise and strengthen, but that 
there existed opinions which could not but encourage his 
dreams as an ambitious sovereign. 

We have had occasion to remark already that events 
in foreign politics had provoked temporary divergences 
in foreign policy. The Russophobe tendency, which in 
itself was bound to become Austrophil, was also a tendency 
of inordinate pretensions. It must not be forgotten that 
those who exploited national Chauvinism and propagated 
Bulgarian imperialism were at the same time the foremost 
Germanophils. One of the principal champions of Great 
Bulgaria, the former revolutionary Rizoff, is to-day the 
confidential agent of Ferdinand of Coburg at Berlin, where 
he maintains two ideas, parallel, and for that matter, 
inseparable, Bulgarian hegemony in the Balkans and eternal 
friendship with the Austro-Germans. 

* The Pesti Hirlap of April 30th, 1916, emphasises the fact that 
Ferdinand had been an officer of Hungarian hussars, that he is a Hun- 
garian landowner, and that he speaks Hungarian. The former Bulgarian 
Consul Pantche Doreff speaks also with emphasis of the souvenirs left 
by Lieutenant Ferdinand of Coburg in his regiment as " a legend which 
passes from mouth to mouth." The Lokal Anzeiger of May 7th, 1916, 
insists on the fact that the Bulgarian sovereign belongs to a princely 
German house, etc. 



CHAPTER XX 

BULGAKIAN MEGALOMANIA 

The explanation of politics and temperament must also 
be sought in the character of a people. In the case under 
our consideration, the analysis is very complicated. 

It must be understood, first of all, that even when we 
leave out of the question Bulgarian subjects belonging to 
other nationalities, the Bulgarian people, property speaking, 
is the least homogeneous of the Balkan national entities. 
From the beginning, the fusion in unequal proportions of 
the Tartar and Slav elements, alien immigration, pertur- 
bations of all kinds, produced in the various regions of the 
country great ethnic diversity, and even varieties of 
anthropological types. Then the long enslavement under 
the Turks, commencing brusquely at the most critical 
moment of the development of the Bulgarian people, cut 
short the process of formation of a nation in the higher 
sense of the word. Last of all, it was not by the spontaneous 
effort of an organised conscious national will that it was 
freed from the Turkish yoke. The new Bulgarian State 
was not constituted ; it was created artificially. 

Whilst this rudimentary creation of a nation was still 
in progress, one element detached itself from the rest : 
a so-called educated class was improvised. We may judge 
of the differences between the popular mass and the educated 
class from a portrait recently drawn by a Bulgar. 

In the Kambana (November 9th, 1916), a journal habi- 
tually tinged with the purest Chauvinism, an old diplomatist 
admires " the miraculous transformation of the Bulgar, 
whom the Roumanian and the Serb despised, formerly, 
as an inferior being, uncultured and unfitted for an inde- 
pendent existence." 

" Every springtime Bulgars came to Constantinople. They 
were shepherds, labourers, robust but rude, dressed in skins, 
the squealing bagpipes slung over their shoulders, on their 

222 



BULGARIAN MEGALOMANIA 223 

heads the sheepskin bonnet which they threw on the ground, 
danced, and asked baksheesh of passers-by. The ' Bulgar ' 
gardeners were a little superior. 

" Thus were the Bulgars described, and the stranger formed 
his opinion of that people from those he met with at Constanti- 
nople. 

" Before the liberation the Bulgar represented nothing. 
He was unknown, forgotten ; his rights were characterised 
by the debasing term, ' Turkish rayah,' which designated his 
servitude. 

"It is pretended that the age of miracles has long passed 
awaj/. It is not true, for they still happen. Bulgaria to-day 
is the latest and greatest miracle in the world." 

The " enlightened " class, in reality uncultured, and 
barely educated, constituted in haste to satisfy the needs 
of the administration of a young State — what could it do 
in so short a time with this primitive people, uncivilised, 
and totally destitute of a national conscience ? The power 
of corruption and the prestige of the stick, which have 
made this people vote for the official candidates, even under 
the most democratic governments, show that the Bulgarian 
people is far from occupying the fourth place in Europe, 
from the standpoint of education (as Bulgarian statistics 
maintain*), and that it possesses no political perception. 

Ferocious brutality, selfishness, cupidity, boastfulness 
in success, cruelty in victory, cowardice in defeat, clannish 
intolerance, distrust, hypocrisy, trickery and cunning — 
these characteristics are a heritage of the Tartar race, as 
well as a relic of slavery, or even vestiges of the primitive 
characteristics of the race. 

Those who speak in its name to-day and represent 
public opinion are no longer clad in skins, no longer carry 
the squealing bagpipes on their shoulders, nor the sheepskin 
bonnet on their heads ; but, even after thirty years, they 
manifest the same traits of character, developed into vices. 

And the present stormy period has more than ever 

brought them into relief. 

* * 
* 

Among Bulgarian failings megalomania holds the first 
place. Unceasingly augmenting, ever since the intoxicating 

* Dr. Ostwald, in his pamphlet Die Kulturpolitische Mission Bul- 
garien, 1916, quotes Bulgarian statistics giving 2 per cent, of illiterates 
in Bulgaria. The author of the present work, a surgeon in a hospital 
during the Serbo-Bulgarian war of 191 3, found in a whole ward full of 
Bulgarian wounded only one man who knew how to read and write. 



224 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

dream of San Stefano, this folly degenerated into madness 
after the successes brought off, thanks to the alliance with 
Germany. According to the Bulgarian press, Bulgaria 
has given proof of the highest qualities in this world war. 

The role of Bulgaria in the European war would seem 
to be of the utmost importance : " The intervention of 
Bulgaria," writes the Narodni Prava of December 5th, 
1915, " caused Asquith and Grey to lose their heads : 
there remains nothing of the grand airs they gave them- 
selves formerly. Their ideas are confused." The Bulgarian 
minister Petkoff wrote in the Berliner Tageblatt of January 
8th, 1916 : " By her intervention, Bulgaria has hastened the 
end of this terrible war and decided the victory of the 
Central Powers." The Dnevnik of September o/th, 1916, 
calls attention to the fundamental role of Bulgaria in the 
European war. 

Bulgarian military successes would appear to have been 
of decisive import. After the Bulgarian counter-offensive 
of August, 1916, the Sofia journals announced the fall of 
the Briand Ministry as imminent (Outro, August 24th, 1916). 
The Narodni Prava of October 24th, 1916, wrote that the 
taking of Constanza presaged the approaching end of the 
war, because the Quadruple Entente had lost all hope of 
success. Two days later, the Dnevnik saw in the battles 
of Dobrudja " the beginning of the end of the European war," 
and the Narodni Prava exclaimed : " The war has been won 
finally in the Dobrudja." 

To this high estimate of the part played by Bulgaria 
corresponds an over-estimate of her power. The Vice- 
President of the Sobranie, Momtchiloff , declared in the Neues 
Wiener Journal (January 5th, 1916) that " the Bulgarian 
Army, in consequence of the recent victories, has become 
so powerful that the Entente would need two million soldiers 
to vanquish it." Replying to a speech from the throne, the 
Sobranie states (February 15th, 1916) that the Bulgarian 
armies " burst like a mighty hurricane on the enemy and 
forced him into disorderly flight." The Bulgarian charge 
d'affaires at Berne, Keremektchieff, declared to a corre- 
spondent of the Berliner Tageblatt (November 7th, 1916) 
that the Bulgarian forces were inexhaustible : "As for us 
Bulgars we could carry on the war for another hundred 
years." The Voenni Izvestia (August 30th, 1916), speaking 
of the Roumanian intervention, was not afraid to assert 
that the Bulgarian armies " would break the head of all 



BULGARIAN MEGALOMANIA 225 

enemies more easily than a hammer of iron," and that they 
were going to use " German method and Bulgarian ardour 
to beat down the many -headed hydra." 

* * 
* 

Nowhere did Bulgarian bragging show itself to greater 
effect than in the celebration of the successes against Serbia. 
Setting aside certain mistakes occasioned by calculations 
based on data whose falsity has since been demonstrated, 
without in any way implicating the responsibility of the 
Serbs, we cannot refuse to render homage to the Serbian 
Army which has striven to resist an enemy twice its strength 
and in very unfavourable conditions. The Austrians, 
insatiate enemies of the Serbs, have rendered them this 
homage against their will, the Germans have done so 
without hesitation. 

The Neue Freie Presse of October 13th, 1915, recognised 
in Serbia a courageous enemy in the military sense, whose 
gallantry surpassed the valour of many others. " The 
Serbian soldier is endowed with high intelligence, and above 
all with a fanatical love for his country." The Frankfurter 
Zeitung of October 17th, 1915, said " the Serbs have been 
in all battles a stout and powerful enemy." The Berliner 
Tageblatt of October 18th insisted on " the ardour, the 
resistance, and the intrepidity of the Serbian soldiers." 
The Frankfurter Zeitung and the Vossische Zeitung of 
October 18th, 1915, published articles on the Balkan battles 
in which the Serbs had no longer any chance, since the 
Entente was powerless to come to their aid with three or 
four hundred thousand soldiers, which were indispensable. 
Major Moraht spoke in the Berliner Tageblatt of October 19th 
of the " immense difficulties " met with in the Balkan 
expedition in consequence of " Serbian resistance, which 
was almost insurmountable." The Frankfurter Zeitung of 
October 24th insisted, in a dispatch sent to the Bulgarian 
Headquarters, on the fact that the Serbs were in a very 
difficult position near Negotine, where several fires had 
broken out. " The Serbs in that place seem to lack muni- 
tions ; they are fighting, notwithstanding, with desperate 
courage." The Vossische Zeitung of November 19th, 1915, 
published a letter from Collin Ross : " Serbia has been 
seized by the throat in three places. The. Serbian Army 
has behind it inaccessible mountains. It is like an animal 
hemmed in on all sides. Of what use are courage and the 



226 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

spirit of sacrifice in such conditions ? . . . The struggle 
against the Serbs has not been easy. Much blood has been 
shed. They have defended themselves to the last breath." 
Major Moraht, analysing, in the Berliner Tageblatt of Novem- 
ber 29th, 1915, the military operations on all fronts, asserts 
that, on the west, the Germans would have preferred to 
occupy Paris rather than to halt before the capital ; that 
they would rather have renewed their Sedan exploit against 
the Russians than merely rectified the eastern frontier, and 
that they would have liked to capture the remains of the 
Serbian Army instead of letting them retire to Albania. 
" We must pay homage to Serbian valour. The Serbian 
Staff has accomplished its task as perfectly as the numerical 
superiority of the enemy on the north as well as on the 
east permitted." Colonel Gaedke wrote in the Vorwdrts 
of December 3rd, 1915 : "A part of the Serbian troops 
succeeded in escaping the enveloping movement of Mackensen 
and the Bulgars. We must acknowledge that, under the 
circumstances, it was a clever manoeuvre of the Serbian 
Commander-in-Chief, Putnik, who had already given proof 
of his capacity in the wars of 1912, 1913, and 1914. The 
Serbian soldiers fought gallantly against an enemy greatly 
superior in numbers, and it appears that even in the last 
combats near Prishtina they showed great tenacity." Major 
Moraht praises, in the Berliner Tageblatt of December 4th, 
" the resistance of the Serbs in the environs of Monastir, 
a resistance that was superb in spite of destitution and cold." 
The Vossische Zeitung of January 3rd, 1916, publishes the 
text of an order of the day of King Louis of Bavaria to his 
army. In it we read " in the course of our tireless advance 
in the Balkans we have mastered a courageous enemy." The 
Nepszava of Buda-Pesth (Socialist) wrote on January 30th, 
1916 : " The Serbian people succeeded in repulsing powerful 
armies and in defending themselves for month after month 
before being beaten by Great Powers possessing a highly- 
developed industry and indisputable numerical superiority." 

In the course of this unequal struggle, which could 
bring no glory to the victor, the Bulgars alone saw in the 
advance of the three armies against Serbia, only a triumph 
of Bulgarian heroism. 

The Minister Tontcheff exulted in the Berliner Tageblatt 
of November 28th, 1915 : 

" I told you that we should have finished with Serbia in 
three weeks, and we have done so. Serbia is crushed." 



BULGARIAN MEGALOMANIA 227 

Radoslavoff said to a correspondent of the Az Est : 

" The Serbian resistance was overcome sooner than was 

hoped for, and sooner than our enemies themselves expected." 

(Frankfurter Zeittmg, December 3rd, 1915.) 

The Sobranie, also, in replying to the speech from the 
throne, of February 15th, boasts of the " lightning rapidity 
with which the perfidious enemy has been crushed."* 
The Narodni Prava of December 1st, 1915, wrote : 
" An end has been made of Serbia and her arnry in about 
forty days. One of our enemies is beaten, and the Balkans 
are freed from the scourge which has oppressed them for so 
many years. . . . We have strangled once for all a miserable 
instrument of the Entente." 

The Mayor of Sofia, Radeff, greeted by telegraph the 
Llead of the Municipality of Vienna, Weiss Kirchner, on 
the occasion of the capture of Monastir : 

" I hasten to salute in your person the Viennese popula- 
tion, and to brand the cowardice of the Serbs, who have been 
punished in exemplary fashion for their atrocious crimes against 
the Austro-Hungarian crown." (Frankfurter Zeitanz., December 
8th.) 

Even in circles generally sympathetic towards the 
Germans protest was made against these repulsive exulta- 
tions over Serbia, meanly overthrown. An organ of German- 
speaking Switzerland, the Basler Nachrichten (December 
2nd, 1915) attacked the President of the German Reichsrath 
because he extolled, in the downfall of Serbia, punishment 
for the crime of Serajevo : 

" These phrases are really out of place, since the small 
Serbian State has only been beaten finally by two great powers 
supported by Bulgaria. These conclusions are, moreover, 
unjust. The Serbian people which suffers now is in no wise 
guilty of murder. . . . We are persuaded that, even to Germans, 
who have sacrificed aU they hold most precious for their Father- 
land, it is repugnant to hear the Mayor of Berlin — raised by a 
chance to the dignity of President of the Reichsrath — affirm 

* The Bulgarian Colonel Asmanoff showed the correspondent of 
the Vossische Zeitung (December 22nd, 1915) the office of the Serbian 
President of the Council at Nish, the coffee-cup of Pashitch ; in exhibiting 
these trophies he glorified the conquest of Nish by the Bulgarian troops 
" numerically inferior to the Serbian troops, who offered a stubborn 
resistance." The desperate situation of the Serbs when Nish was aban- 
doned shows, however, the want of foundation as well as the bad taste 
of this boast. Asmanoff and also General Boiadjieff (the same who 
was defeated in 1916 near Monastir) considered " the second phase of 
the Balkan campaign finished." 



228 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

that the war lias for its object the avenging of such and such 
an Austrian prince." 

* .* 

The Bulgars consider themselves not only the strongest, 
they lay claim to still other superiorities. Replying to an 
attack of Leonid Andreyev, who termed them " hucksters 
in the Slav Temple," they declared that it is to them that 
Andreyev owes it that he is not illiterate.* (Narodni Prava, 
May 25th, 1916.) 

It was with extreme pleasure that Sofia welcomed the 
German flattery that " from a commercial and industrial 
standpoint the progress of the United States of America 
alone is worth comparing with that of Bulgaria " {Narodni 
Prava, May 28th, 1916). The Mir (November 3rd, 1916) 
publishes a report of a lecture by Pistor, Secretary of the 
Vienna Chamber of Commerce, asserting that " Bulgaria 
occupies by the number of its literates the fourth place in 
Europe, immediately after England, Belgium and Germany." 
There is nothing astonishing, after this, to find that the 
Preporetz regards the taking of Tutrakan as " a victory of 
Bulgarian culture," and that the Balkanska Pochta of Novem- 
ber 15th, 1916, attributes to Bulgaria " the mission of dis- 
arming, purifying and civilising Roumania." 

Replying to attacks in the English press, the Narodni 
Prava of June 5th, 1916, does not hesitate to declare that 
Bulgaria is a country where liberty, law, and justice are 
better secured than in England. The Bulgarian Minister 
at Berne, Passaroff, has drawn up quite a list of the superior 
qualifications of the Bulgarian people and policy : 

" We are a people eminently democratic. We have universal 
suffrage established on the proportional system, which is in 
France the ideal of the most advanced circles. We have full 
ministerial responsibilhy to Parliament, much more extended 
than in other democratic countries. Twice already our Ministers 
have been condemned to prison. Our King has never dared 
to neglect Parliamentary procedure as President Wilson did a 
few weeks ago. The Bulgarian King cannot bestow the title 

* The Kambana of December 6th, 1916, places Bulgaria far above 
Russia, saying : " There is nothing more offensive, no scoff more painful 
to a Bulgar, than to be regarded as a brother of that illiterate mass, that 
herd of slaves and despairing peasants, which make up Russian regiments." 
The deputy Daskaloff wrote in the same journal a year before (December 
12th, 1915) : " The tough Bulgar has given a lesson to the western 
Latins, who have always despised him, believing themselves superior to 
him." 



BULGARIAN MEGALOMANIA 229 

of lord on wealthy industrials." (Frankfurter Zeitung, April 
20th, 1917.) 

These affirmations, of an audacity which borders on 
cynicism, may nevertheless contain a morsel of truth : 
the Bulgarian king, indeed, does not stop at trifles. Why 
should he " neglect Parliamentary procedure," like President 
Wilson ? He resorts to a procedure more radical, and simply 
dissolves Parliaments one after another, whenever they 
inconvenience him. 

Bulgaria is the only country in Europe where a party in 
power can always transform a minority of six deputies 
into a crushing majority of one hundred and sixty, and the 
only country in the world where Parliamentary reports 
have registered such incidents as those contained inDrandar's 
book, " Bulgaria under Prince Ferdinand " (p. 152) : 

" The home policy of Petkoff was provocative, reactionary 
and violent ; his language was constantly menacing. ' I will 
have you hanged in the precincts of the National Assembly 
itself,' he shouted ; or again : ' If I wish, neither you, M. Pet- 
cheff,* nor they,' said he, pointing to the members of the Oppo- 
sition, ' will return here as deputies ; if I wished to destroy you, 
I should only have to go out from here for a few minutes, and you 
would all disappear without mercy and without amnesty.' " (Nov. 
Vek., 1904, No. 813.) 

This sinister episode of Bulgarian parliamentarism 
belongs precisely to the regime of the Narodni Prava party, 
called " the party of grip." 

The Outro of November 21st, 1916, published informa- 
tion according to which numerous English and French 
prisoners who, being invalided, were free to return to their 
country, had declared that they preferred to remain in 
Bulgaria. 

The Kambana of October 27th, 1916, contains the follow- 
ing reflections of an eminent personage, on the Bulgarian 
effort in the war : 

" No other people in this stormy period has made better 
use of its time than the Bulgarian. 

" In 1912 it achieved its object in two months. In 1915 
two months sufficed it to rid Serbia of the Serbs. In 1916 the 

* By this allusion M. Petkoff meant to convey to M. Petchefif, the 
ex-Minister, that his friends Ivantchoff, Tontcheff, Radoslavoff, etc., 
had been amnestied only through his intervention, without which they 
would have been permanently excluded from the Chamber, having been 
sentenced by the Court of the State to prison and the loss of their civic 
and political rights. (Note by Drandar.) 





230 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

same lapse of time served it to drive the Roumanians and Rus- 
sians out of the Dobrudja. / The time fixed for the definite 
annihilation of Roumania may be easily determined. This 
annihilation will certainly contribute greatly to the peace 
desired by all. It forms part of the Bulgarian programme." 

The Kambana often published these megalomaniac 
" Bulgarian programmes." For instance, in an article 
headed " Great Bulgaria " (September 13th), it wrote : 

" The time has come for Bulgaria to appear on the stage 
of history as an important factor in civilisation and progress. 
Bulgaria is rising day by day, and she is outgrowing her neigh- 
bours. Everything Italy has lost as a military power, every- 
thing Roumania has lost by refusing alliance with the great 
powers, passes to Bulgaria. Serbia destroyed and Roumania 
partitioned means for Bulgaria not only doubled territory, 
but complete liberation from outside restraint. It means 
also that Bulgaria takes her place among independent powers 
whose voice must be heard in shaping the destiny of the world." 

Could it be otherwise with a country which, like her 
German ally, possesses all moral and physical superiority, 
and even has God at the service of her pretensions ? 

Indeed, the Kambana of September 8th, 1916, saw already 
in the Bulgarian successes a manifestation of " the higher 
ordering of events." The Mir of December 20th, 1916, 
considered the Roumanian defeat " a chastisement sent by 
God." 

The Narodni Prava of November 15th, 1916, formulated 
a dogma of " the hand of God " and exclaimed : 

" One cannot imagine a situation more terrible than that 
in which the States who have offended the good heart of Bulgaria 
and her King now find themselves. These countries exist no 
longer, or those which do live in terror." 

A decisive part in the world war ; the force of a hurri- 
cane ; means to carry on the war for a hundred years ; 
economic rivalry with the United States ; moral and cul- 
tural superiority ; Parliamentary perfection ; ideal demo- 
cracy ; a place in the rank of world powers ; and a divine 
nationality — all this constitutes, in the matter of preten- 
sions, a list which might be regarded as complete. How- 
ever, the Mir finds something to add, in lamenting the excess 
of a Bulgarian virtue, the last jewel of this crown — modesty. 
In its issue of March 22nd, 1916, speaking of conditions 
after the war, it says : 

" It is of the highest importance that we should all recognise 



BULGARIAN MEGALOMANIA 231 

the new situation of Bulgaria, and should get rid of certain 
habits, the heritage of our recent past. These find expression 
in our sentiments of submission and docility, of yielding and 
conciliation, in our inclination to abdicate our rights, even 
when acknowledged or on the point of being so." 

With " modesty " the picture of Bulgarian virtue and 

superiority is complete. 

* * 

* 

The great role allotted to advertisement and propa- 
ganda in foreign countries is only a part of this boastfulness. 
Every means and all the factors of public life must minister 
to it. Before the intervention of Bulgaria, the two warring 
camps of Europe were besieged by Bulgarian emissaries of 
all sorts. However, even after her entrance into the war 
on the side of the Central Empires, Bulgaria contrived to 
have representatives in countries against which' she was 
fighting. Thus, a former Bulgarian diplomatist has unceas- 
ingly carried on a propaganda and kept alive erroneous 
notions concerning his country, in an Entente capital, 
until quite recent times. 

The Bulgarian writer, A. Kiproff, was delegated to 
Switzerland when he published at Berne, in 1915, the pam- 
phlet, " The Truth about Bulgaria." On his return to 
Sofia, Kiproff was received by Radoslavoff, who declared 
himself " satisfied with the results of the mission." How- 
ever, this agent of Radoslavoff, whose task it was to work 
for the anti-Russian, anti-Entente policy of Coburg, belonged 
to the Progressist Party (Tsankovists) of Daneff, and was 
even formerly a deputy and secretary of an office in Parlia- 
ment. The immorality of this case roused the Tsankovist 
Party from its lethargy, and it disavowed .Kiproff and his 
opinions in the Mir of May 8th. Kiproff retorted, and the 
scandal was crowned by a paragraph in the Outro of May 
iot'h, 1916, as follows* : 

" The well-known former Tsankovist deputy, Alexander 
Kiproff, will be appointed chief of the new department of suc- 
cour for war orphans which will be established shortly." 

" The Truth about Bulgaria," which these agents of 
Bulgarian propaganda abroad promised to their readers, 
is made manifest by these facts in a striking way. 

* The same number of the Outro announces : " The Bulgarian 
Consul, Dr. S. Tahanoff, and the Chief of Bureau at the Sobranie, G. 
Kostoff, are- sent abroad. The Democratic deputy, G. Vasilieff, has also 
gone to Germany. 



232 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

" Truths " of this kind have been supplied to the world 
by the Bulgars by every sort of means and of all shades. 

Having taken advantage of the benevolence of foreign 
Bulgarophils, in the first place that of the Slavists of German 
and Austrian Universities,* the Bulgars push their propa- 
ganda, even in Esperanto, in the Esperantist review pub- 
lished at Berlin. f As for Coburg, he has not hesitated, in 
his character as a comedian, to play a part with all his 
family on a Chauvinist film, glorifying Bulgarian successes 
in Serbia. The film was frantically applauded throughout 
Germany.* Bulgarian advertisement refuses nothing. 

In the Odyssey of his hero across Europe, the author of 
" Baya Gagno " has two characteristic episodes : 

" Taken by his Prague friends to an art museum, Baya 
Gagno was bored, deigning to show some little interest in the 
visitors' book alone. To reach the table where it lay, he elbowed 
his way through the visitors, treading on the toes of one, hustling 
a second, and, snatching a pen from a third, he covered the 
register with blots, and, as a finishing stroke, with his sticky, 
bristly hand, decorated the page with the brilliant words : 

' Gagno of the Balkans. ' 

Another time, at Vienna, in summer, he went to a public bath- 
ing establishment. Entering the bath with a bound, he in- 
dulged in wild feats, splashing the other bathers unmercifully. 
Then, satisfied with the effect he believed he had produced, 
without taking into account the annoyance he had caused, 
persuaded that he read on every countenance intense admira- 
tion for his skill, he ran nimbly up the stairs, stuck out his 
chest, poised himself proudly on straddled legs, casting a proud 
look around and below, and slapping his hairy chest with heroic 
gesture, shouted triumphantly : ' It is Bulgarian, that ; it is 
Bulgarian.' " 

Yes ; it was the Bulgar ! 

* Order given by the Sofia Academy of Science for a new edition of 
the " History of Bulgaria," by Iretchek (Dnevnik, May 15th, 191 6). 
Arrival at Sofia of Yensen (Mir, May 30th), etc. The great Slavist 
Yagitch has been coarsely attacked for not adhering to the Bulgarian 
theory on the origin of the Slav alphabet— miscalled by the Bulgars the 
Bulgarian alphabet. (Dnevnik, June 21st, 1916). 

f " Internace Bulteno." (Dnevnik, May 17th, 1916.) 

+ Berliner Tageblatt and Kblnische Zeitung, September 8th, 1916 
(Film Bogdan Stirnoff.) 



CHAPTER XXI 

BULGARIAN CHAUVINISM 

The frantic Chauvinism of the Bulgars is but another 
expression of the bragging of the parvenu clown, of his 
selfish cupidity, and his clannish intolerance. A great 
Bulgaria needs a great number of Bulgarians, and Bulgarian 
policy, science, propaganda, and the Bulgarian Army recruit 
them everywhere and by every means. Everything is 
Bulgarian in the Balkans, from Greek Olympus to the 
Roumanian Carpathians : 

The Kambana of October 27th, 1916, wrote : 

" The English say : ' Scratch a Russian, and you find a 
Tartar.' This may be applied with far more justice to Rou- 
manians and Greeks. Both are a mixture of diverse ingredients 
and, above all, of the Bulgarian element. If we set ourselves 
to find out the origin of the Roumanians and Greeks, we should 
discover that in seventy- five per cent of them it was Bulgarian." 

In the Preporetz (October 26th, 1916) protest is made 
against the Roumanian names given to Roumanian towns, 
like Preadal, for instance, which, according to the patriots 
of the Bulgarian Democratic organ, should be spelt Predel, 
a name which testifies to the ancient Bulgarian culture of 
all that Roumanian region. And since Bulgarians live 
there it should be included within the frontiers of Bulgaria. 

According to the Dnevnik of January 31st, 1917 : 
" It would be doing violence to common sense and political 
logic if we recognised the right of the Roumanian people to 
dispose of itself, from the national point of view. . . ." The 
Bulgarian journal fears the recognition of the right of every 
people to dispose of itself. " It would create," says the 
Dnevnik, " incredible difficulties," above all if we were not 
to take into consideration " the degree of civilisation 
indispensable to enable nations to constitute themselves 
into a State." 

The notion of the Bulgarian organ is clear : in the 

233 



234 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Balkans only the Bulgarian people possess the " degree of 
civilisation indispensable." On another occasion the 
Dnevnik is of opinion that Monastir is " the centre of Bul- 
garism." This conception, in fact, offers the only means, 
in radiating from the centre, of reaching the Adriatic littoral, 
and, consequently, the " third Bulgarian sea." The Narodni 
Prava of May 23rd, 1916, calls Salonica " the Bulgarian 
Bethlehem." The Mir of September 5th, 1916, designates 
the Dobrudja as " the cradle of the ancient Bulgarian 
Empire." In the Bulgarian press, as also in the despatches 
of foreign journals (Pesther Lloyd, October 28th, 1916) they 
rejoice at the notion of the " coming liberation of the old 
Bulgarian town of Tulcea," at the mouth of the Danube. 

The arbitrary nature of Bulgarian pretensions to Serbian 
provinces is shown by the influence exercised on them by 
military successes, which causes them to vary constantly. 
The Mir, which up to September, 1915, limited Bulgarian 
aims to Monastir, from the first Germano-Austro-Bulgarian 
victories, extended them not only to Dibar, Skoplia and 
Koumanovo, classic spots of Old Serbia, but to Leskovatz, 
Nish, Pirot, and Zayetchar, situated in the very heart of 
actual Serbia. 

These Serbian provinces on the right bank of the Morava 
have been the principal object of the pretensions and pro- 
paganda of the Bulgars, above all since the day when 
German Mittel-Europa schemes affirmed the necessity of 
snatching the Morava lands from Serbian possession. 
Already in November, 1915, Bulgaria proclaimed openly 
and officially the expansion of its aspirations beyond the 
limits of the Serbo-Bulgarian treaty of 1912, and even to 
the valley of the Morava.* 



Nish was coveted by Bulgarian Chauvinism with especial 
ardour. The correspondent of the Narodni Prava, a Bul- 
garian schoolmaster in the military administration of Nish, 
publishes a series of articles on Nish {Narodni Prava, Feb- 
ruary 5th to 8th, 1916), in which he insists on the necessity 
of weaning the population, in as short a time as possible, 
from the use of the Serb tongue, which was imposed on 
them by force. He protests against the promulgation of 
orders by municipal agents in the Serbian language. " The 

* Declaration of Kaloucheff, Bulgarian Minister at Constantinople, 
published in the Tasfir-i-Efkiar. (Vorwiirts, November 21st, 1915.) 



BULGARIAN CHAUVINISM 235 

population," he says, " must be obliged to learn the Bulgarian 
language rapidly." Accosted by someone before the Muni- 
cipality, who asked him to explain an order on a poster 
affixed to the wall, he obliged him to decipher it without the 
aid of anyone, and forbade him to ask, henceforth, no matter 
whom, to translate Bulgarian orders. Thus, he says, must 
we deal with the population " which still hopes for the 
return of Serbian domination." He demands also, as an 
urgent measure, that " all Serbian books should be taken 
away from private houses and replaced by books in Bulgarian " 
— which has been done, by the way. It is interesting to 
quote one of the letters from Nish addressed to the Narodni 
Prava (February 16th, 1916) by " the special delegate of 
the direction of the Bulgarian press." The delegate relates 
that he has had a discussion with a young Serbian tradesman 
in the latter's shop : 

" I wanted to buy something. Milan showed me an assort- 
ment of goods, and as I was the only customer for the moment, 
he began to talk. His voice was calm and sad, he bridled up 
from time to time, and one felt then a bad and hostile note 
in his speech. He deplored the ruin of Serbia and the Serbs ; 
even Belgium, which all the world pitied, could not be com- 
pared to them. Might not the Bulgars have abstained from 
intervening ? . . . There are undoubted Serbian memories in 
Macedonia, that of Marko Kralievitch, for example. . . . I 
saw before me the everlasting Serb, profoundly infected by Chau- 
vinism and delusion. I began to laugh, and told him how ugly 
and disgraceful his behaviour seemed to me, for an intelligent 
man. . . . Certainly we must have made an interesting group. 
From the beginning of the conversation, Milan's old father 
drew near to us ; later, another Serb joined cur group. Their 
countenances were strained and gloomy, and when Milan spoke 
their calm expression changed into an odd grimace of satis- 
faction and hope." 

The Echo de Bulgarie of February 6th, 1916, asserts that 
" the evil work of Serbian Chauvinism during thirty-seven 
years has left very profound traces in that country. ..." 

" For that matter," adds the Echo de Bulgarie, " the 
proverbial tolerance of the Bulgars is a sufficient shelter 
either for real Serbs or those tainted with Serbism." 

The care of political objects to be pursued in the occupied 
provinces fell to Tchaprachikoff, former Bulgarian Minister 
at Belgrade and Nish, who, after the occupation, was 
nominated special Commissary to the military authorities 
in the latter place. During the first months of the occupa- 



236 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

tion, the royal Commissary expressed " the hope that 
Bulgarisation would not meet with great difficulties " 
(Vossische Zeitung, December 4th, 1915). Ten months 
later, Tchaprachikoff, interviewed by the correspondent 
of the same Vossische Zeitung (September 19th, 1916), said : 

" German readers will learn with interest how I fashion 
the Serbian people without resorting to strong measures. Up 
to 1876, moreover, Nish was a Bulgarian town. The Serbs 
succeeded in ' Serbising ' a thin layer. . . . Authority has 
contrived to Bulgarise anew, in a relatively short time, the whole 
town of Nish and the neighbouring villages. Thanks to the 
priests as well as to wise administrative measures, we have 
succeeded in regaining this ancient Bulgaria entirely, and at 
the same time in conquering the Serb regions by culture.* 
As we are firmly resolved to keep the country we have con- 
quered, our attitude towards the native population is one of 
friendly prudence. . . . Only those among the Old Bulgars (?) 
who have fought against the Bulgars are interned." 

It is not easy to seize this very subtle distinction, which is 
inspired only by the impossibility of being clear. But we 
know that all valid men were deported from the first days 
of the occupation. All the schoolmasters, all the priests, 
even the bishop of Nish were sent into concentration 
camps where they were subjected to a terrible regime. 
Half of them died of privations or disease. The Serbian 
notables of the whole Pomoravlie (valley of the Morava) 
were made to clean the streets of Sofia daily. 

The assertion that it is easy to Bulgarise the valleys of 
the Nishava and the Morava is contradicted by Bulgarian 
documents themselves. Among these, it may be well to 
quote an article of the Narodni Prava, of January 22nd, 
1916, attacking Serbian nationalism in the occupied pro- 
vinces : 

" On January 20th, between the stations of Sitchevo and 
Sveta Petka, in the territory of the former kingdom of Serbia, 

* It is difficult to reconcile affirmations of the magical success of 
Bulgarisation with the doubts expressed, a few months before, by Sofia 
Chauvinists concerning the department of Trn, to wit, if that depart- 
ment of western Bulgaria ought to be regarded as effectively Bulgarian. 
Indeed, it presented a grave question, formulated in July, 1914, by a 
journal friendly to Tchaprachikoff, the Kambana, which accused the 
population of the department of entertaining Serbian leanings, and 
demanded their transplantation into the interior of Bulgaria. The 
revelations made by the journal on the Serbophil state of mind of the 
population became compromising to such an extent that the Bulgarian 
schoolmasters, at their annual assembly in August, 1914, were asked to 
counteract this by a declaration fitted to calm misled public opinion. 



BULGARIAN CHAUVINISM 237 

malefactors, unknown, fired on the Berlin-Sofia-Constantinople 
train. This can only be the impotent spitefulness of dying 
Serbian Chauvinism. It would be well, nevertheless, to take 
severe measures against the Serbian population, and in order 
not to allow fanatics the possibility of fomenting troubles in 
the new territories, let us be less tolerant and more severe." 

They know how then, all the same, to find Serbs in the 
occupied Serbian provinces — the moment it becomes a 
question of persecuting them. 

The Bulgars have confirmed it in basing on the principle 
" no tolerance, but severity," a regime of terror unexampled. 
In January and February, 1917, the Bulgarian journals 
no longer speak of schools in the occupied territory, but of 
new prisons. 

The Dnevnik of January 31st, 1917, announces " the 
project of the Ministry to establish sixteen more prisons 
in the occupied country." The ensuing month all the 
activity of the Bulgarian Sobranie was absorbed in the 
discussion of the special law concerning " the extermination 
of brigands " in the occupied territory. The brigands 
were " those incorrigible Serbian Chauvinists " who refused 
to join the Bulgarian Army to fight their brothers, 
fathers, and sons serving in the Serbian Army on the 
Macedonian front. And whilst in the Sobranie they were 
framing the law of terror against the oppressed Serbian 
people, which delayed to acknowledge itself Bulgarian, 
the Germano-Bulgarian regiments, in this same month of 
March, 1917, strangled the vast insurrection in the southern 
provinces of the Morava (Prokuplie, Kourshumlia, and the 
environs of Leskovatz and Vronia). Levelling the villages 
of several districts, German artillery and Bulgarian bayonets 
completed the work of Bulgarian propaganda begun by 
the ethnologists of Sofia and the Bulgarian schools in 
occupied Serbia. 

* * 

* 

We may judge from these tendencies of character 
how sparing in delicacy and tolerance was the Bulgarian 
propaganda through schools and books. The Mir of 
January 26th, 1916, wrote : 

" The school is, without doubt, one of the means by which 
the population of the new provinces may become the blood of 
our blood." 



238 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Narodni Prava of March 20th, 1916, said of the 
school laws in the occupied Serbian provinces : 

' ' The Bulgarian people in arms has finished its task. It 
is the turn now of Bulgarian schoolmasters in the liberated 
provinces to prepare a solid basis for the extension of Bulgarian 
culture. It is thus that the figure of Bulgaria could dominate 
from the Black Sea to the Albanian mountains, from the Danube 
to Prespa and the iEgean Sea." 

On March 12th, 1916, a conference of schoolmasters 
was held at Skoplia. The inspector of primary schools, 
S. P. Petroff, profited by the occasion to press upon the 
teachers the duty of " correcting the language of the pupils, 
corrupted by the Serbs . . . and ridding the parents, especi- 
ally the more influential ones, of the very inferior Serbian 
culture " {Narodni Prava, March, 1916). 

The Minister of Public Instruction, Pecheff, stated to 
one of the staff of the Outro (April 14th, 1916) that : 

" In three months only, elementary schools had been opened 
in all the towns of the liberated provinces, except Prilep, and that, 
in some, high-school classes had been established ; that schools 
had been opened even in the villages so far as circumstances 
permitted. . . . The results had surpassed all expectations." 

It is true that Bulgarian schools were opened everywhere, 
even in places situated at the extreme limits of the occupied 
provinces, even at Pojarevatz ; but in spite of all the 
violent means employed, success was so small that the 
Bulgars themselves ended by no longer counting on the 
schools. 

The Outro of August 22nd, 1916, was informed that 
" the Ministry of Public Instruction had decided to open 
high schools at Nish and Skoplia only in case pupils presented 
themselves in sufficient numbers. Failing this, only classes 
for which there were pupils would be established." This 
proves that in the two largest towns of occupied Serbia, 
Nish and Skoplia, whose Serbian high schools had over- 
flowed with pupils to such a degree that many classes had 
to be duplicated, there was not the minimum of pupils 
required when it became a question of opening Bulgarian 
high schools. Some newspapers complained from time to 
time that parents did not allow their children to attend 
Bulgarian schools, whilst others exulted in observing the 
immense success of " culture " and " Bulgarisation." A 
self-satisfied communique explained everything : 

" The incomplete high schools in the Morava and Mace- 



BULGARIAN CHAUVINISM 239 

donia, like those at Nish, Skoplia (Uskub), and Chtip (Istib), 
notwithstanding the insufficient number of pupils, are working 
normally. The teaching staff is sufficient." (Outro, September 
24th, 1916.) 

Information in the Hungarian journal Vilag of Septem- 
ber 19th, 1916, contradicts the boasts made about the 
so-called success of Bulgarian schools in Serbia : 

"It is semi-ofhcially announced from Sofia : Since the fall 
of Tutrakan a change of opinion among the Chauvinist Serbs 
has been remarked. Before that event it was impossible to 
force the Serbian population to send their children to Bulgarian 
schools ; but after the fall of Tutrakan, we learn that a large 
number of Serbs are applying to the authorities for the admis- 
sion of their children to the Bulgarian schools opened in the 
conquered territory." 

This propaganda by school is supplemented by the 
organisation of Bulgarian libraries in the territories occupied. 
A special Commission was appointed to deal with the pur- 
chase and authorisation of books for the libraries in occupied 
Serbia. (Narodni Prava, February 20th, 1916.) 

A whole literature of propaganda was subventioned. 
One of the members of the Commission, nominated chief of 
the propaganda at the Ministry of Public Instruction, 
published in March, 19 16, a book in which the legendary 
Serbian hero, Kralievitch Marko, protagonist of the most 
glorious cycles of the Serbian epic, is represented as a 
Bulgarian (Narodni Prava, April 13th, 1916). The poet 
Vazoff also wrote verses lauding as a Bulgar the Serbian 
hero of the Revolution of 1804, Haidouk Velko* (Mir, 
December 17th, 1916). 

But the victims of Bulgarian Chauvinism were not let 
off with these tortures of conscience : the old admirers of 
the Pashas and of Stambouloff reserved for them one still 
more humiliating : the obligation of expressing joy at their 
servitude. The Austro-Germans subjugate, oppress, and 
despoil without troubling about the sentiments of their 
victims ; the Bulgarians impose on them forced manifesta- 
tions of gratitude and enthusiasm. 

Indeed, the semi-official Narodni Prava published 
despatches daily from the communes of Serbia congratu- 

* This Chauvinism inspired a Sofia journal {Kambana, August 22nd, 
1916) with the idea of lamenting that the Bulgarian authorities had 
stopped short at exhuming from the cathedral of Sofia, to bury them else- 
where, the remains of the Serbian King Milatine, called " the saintly " and 
by the Kambana " the unworthy." 



240 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

lating themselves on the joys of servitude. I he families 
of Serbian soldiers fighting against the Bulgars on the 
Macedonian front and in the Dobrudja were obliged at 
Nish and Pirot to attend thanksgiving services in the churches 
and festivals elsewhere, celebrating Bulgarian victories 
(Dnevnik, September 9th and 12th, 1916). The wives, 
children, and aged parents of combatants at the front or 
those interned in Bulgaria were forced to take part in the 
manifestations on the anniversary of the taking of Zaitchar 
by the Bulgarian Army (Narodni Prava, November 3rd, 
1916). The Outro of Sofia went so far as to boast of the 
display of enthusiasm for Bulgarian victories at Belgrade 
itself (Outro, September 3rd, 1916). 



These outrages and Chauvinist excesses, added to 
grave abuses in the administration, provoked even a debate 
in the Sobranie, thanks to criticism of the corrupt regime 
in the new provinces, a criticism maintained by the Socialists 
(sitting of the Sobranie, January 13th, 1916). The Demo- 
crats (Malinoff), who had spoken previously of the disagree- 
ment between the military and civil authorities (they took 
the part of the former), seized this opportunity for raising 
a question as to the general policy of the Radoslavoff 
Government concerning the new territorities. 

In the course of the debate, which became more and more 
ardent, Malinoff stated that a military commander at Nish 
" had decided, if they continued to send him functionaries 
like the prefect and the sub-prefects, to pack them off again 
to Sofia." And he added that an " influential Macedonian 
revolutionary had arrived at Sofia to declare that the state 
of things in Macedonia had become intolerable in conse- 
quence of the misdeeds of functionaries." 

The Narodni Prava (February 4th, 1916) expressed 
indignation at the fact that deputies could be found, 
during the debate on the education law, to speak of dena- 
tionalisation and terrorism in the new provinces. In reply- 
ing to the attacks, Radoslavoff denied the statement that 
the new provinces had been treated otherwise than Bulgaria. 
" If there have been abuses and corruption," he said, " it 
is not astonishing : even Russia and England are not 
exempt from abuses and corruption " {Narodni Prava, 
February 21st, 1916). 

The Narodni Prava of March 2nd, 1916, in an article 



BULGARIAN CHAUVINISM 241 

headed " The Inconsistency of the Foreigner," considered 
it scandalous that Malinoff should have " dared to calum- 
niate the country in the person of the Government by 
talking of pretended violence to the population of the new 
provinces. ... In speaking of public order and legality in 
the new countries, he (Malinoff) seeks to demonstrate that 
the Government has created anarchy and corruption." 

It is interesting to note, as characteristic of Bulgarian 
political temperaments, that the second great party in 
opposition (National Party) observed an almost complete 
indifference in its organ, the Mir, to these debates in the 
Sobranie. According to Brchlian, editor of the Dnevnik, 
Boris Vazoff recommended in the Mir a policy inspired by 
the principles of " a reasoned Chauvinism." 

The Bulgarian press remarked that the essential question 
in all these debates was not the suppression of violence and 
corruption, but rather the necessity of a better organised 
propaganda of the Bulgarian language/ and culture in the 
new provinces. Beginning by citing misdeeds of the police, 
the discussion ended in the phrases of philologists. After- 
wards the question was only superficially skimmed from 
time to time in the Socialist organs. 

In his notes of travel from Skoplia, Assen Tsankoff 
wrote on June 2nd, 1916, in the organ of the Reformist 
Socialists (Governmental) : 

" Bulgaria has broken away from its bed and overflowed 
far and wide. Like every element unfolding itself on new 
ground, it brings with it many undesirable things which must 
be eliminated methodically. . . ." 

Important debates took place again in the second session 
of the Sobranie, July, 1916. 

Veltcheff, in the Preporelz of July 6th, 1916, demon- 
strated the need of good administration and good schools 
in the new provinces. Todoroff, in the same number, 
complained of the bad quality of the administrative staff 
in the occupied country, whilst acknowledging that there 
were exceptions. He hesitated to publish details on the 
life and work of the various administrators, but compared 
the actual regime with that of Serbia, who had sent into 
these regions her best functionaries. This debate in the 
Sobranie had been provoked also indirectly by revelations 
on the conflict between the civil and military authorities 
in the new provinces. The criticism of the Sobranie 



242 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

decided the Government to inspect the work of functionaries 
there (Outro, July ioth, 1916). 

At the second reading of the Budget,' Radoslavofi 
acknowledged that there might be some truth in the obser- 
vation that " the choice of functionaries for the new pro- 
vinces had been unfortunate." By themselves, the deeds, 
indicated by the Opposition, which had been committed 
at Prishtina and Prizren, were more than sufficient to prove 
it (Narodni Prava, July 14th, 191*6). The discussion shifted 
from the Sobranie to the press. In his reply to the Narodni 
Prava, which had called him " the demagogue unmasked " 
(August 5th, 1916), the ex-Minister and deputy, Takeff, 
asserted : 

" I have insisted, above all, on the truth that such conflicts 
arose principally from the fact that the authorities had placed 
there as functionaries of police mere criminals fresh from the 
cells. To prove what I said, I threw in the face of the Minister 
of the Interior photographs of some of these characters, photographs 
bearing their numbers in the prison registers. Such are the persons 
who exercise administrative functions to-day in unhappy Mace- 
donia." (Preporetz, August nth, 1916.) 

Unhappy Macedonia ! The Bulgars, however, even 
after such edifying revelations of violence committed in 
the new provinces, and on the corruption that reigns there, 
still declare that they made war only to make Macedonia 
happy. 



CHAPTER XXII 

BRUTALITY AND BASENESS 

" The world belongs only to the strong and daring," said 
" a Bulgarian political personage " in the Outro of September 
12th, 1916. Force, almighty and brutal, is the Bulgarian 
god, the supreme principle, the regulator of life and morals. 
They make it respected, if they possess it ; if they do not, 
they respect it in others. The two forms of worship of 
force — brutality or baseness — lead by the same roads to 
the same ends. 

Both are met with in the public morals of Bulgaria. 
It is not enough for the most eminent representatives of 
Bulgaria to be brutal in ideas and language ; they are 
so even in gesture. 

Narrating his interview with General Tontcheff, com- 
manding the Bulgarian troops in the Dobrudja, the corre- 
spondent of the Pester Lloyd (September 27th, 1916) says : 

" To my question as to his immediate aims, he did not 
reply by words, but by a gesture. He struck the table violently 
with his fist to tell me what he was going to do with Roumania. . . . 
We must crush the Roumanians ! " 

Such is also the language of a Bulgarian prelate, the 
Metropolitan of Stara Zagora, M. Methodius, who sent to 
King Ferdinand, when Tutrakan was taken, a despatch in 
which he found it pleasant to play with the point of the 
Bulgarian bayonet : 

" The Holy Spirit is with us. That is why the Serbs, the 
English, and the Italians will perish by the sword of our soldiers. 
The Russian mother, the ' matoushka,' has also felt its edge ! 
But she will be grateful, notwithstanding. She has proved 
the quality of our steel, and is convinced that her pupils kave 
become remarkable masters. ..." (Narodni Prava, September 
15th, 1916.) 

In reply to Russian attacks, in which Bulgaria was 
called " the Balkan Shylock," the great Bulgarian poet, 

243 



244 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Vazoff, shouted " Long live the sacred grip ! " {Mir, February 
15th, 1916). The " blow of the fist " of his Excellency, 
the " sacred grip " of the prince of Bulgarian poets, the 
knife of the Most Reverend are not gestures much more 
noble than that of the brutal Bulgarian soldiery, whose 
cruelties have revolted the world. The allies of the Bulgars 
are themselves horrified to-day. 

The Berliner Tagcblatt of December 29th, 1916, publishes 
a correspondence from Negotine (a town in the north-east 
of Serbia), dating from the first days of the Bulgarian 
irruption into that town : 

"The town is devastated. In the cellars, stoved-in casks 
float in wine and brandy. Merchandise is thrown here and 
there, furniture is destroyed. . . . The Germans and Austrians 
are already far away ; only Bulgarian soldiers are to be seen. 
On the roadside lies a Serb, killed. He was an officer. He 
lies on his back, his arms spread out. A Bulgarian column 
passes. The Bulgarian comitaj is look at him. Fists are clenched 
at him who sleeps the eternal sleep. It is hatred. ..." 

It is the hideous and ferocious hatred howling against 
the enemy of yesterday or to-day, against all who hinder or 
thwart Bulgarian pretensions ; the vile hatred that inspires 
even the highest debates on foreign polic}^. Indignant 
at the attempt of Adler on the life of Count Sturgkh, the 
Echo de Bulgarie concludes its leading article by exhorting 
the judges to severity. " The blood of the brave which 
trickles on the Alps and Carpathians, and all the theatres 
of war, claims a pitiless chastisement." 

Of the same character is the boasting of the Bulgarian 
churl when he launches gross menaces " to all who are at 
the service of English lords, French bankers, and sanguinary 
Russian monarchism " (Narodni Prava, September 16th, 
1916) ; or rejoices in the hope (not realised) of the loss of 
the Serbian Crown Prince in a critical situation on the Golesh 
mountain (General Boiadjieff in the Az Est, November, 
1915). The tone is given here by His Ministerial and Diplo- 
matic Excellency Radoslavoff, who was the first to insult 
old King Peter, and jeered coarsely at his tragic exodus from 
his country (Berliner Tageblalt, January 30th, 1916). 

The same nature reveals itself in the base jesting of 
which the Bulgars have given proof in using such expres- 
sions as " drunken country " in speaking of Russia (Narodni 
Prava, May 13th, 1916), and of " a meal for fishes of the 
North Sea " in referring to Lord Kitchener (Narodni Prava, 



BRUTALITY AND BASENESS 245 

June 7th, 1916). It is this trivial spirit again which inspires 
King Ferdinand when he grants a decoration to the com- 
poser of a vulgar march, popular in the cafe-concerts of Sofia, 
entitled " Brigand Allies," etc. 

It is gross and voracious greed which speaks through the 
lips of Bulgarian statesmen when they brag of war booty 
or a " rich peace " (General Jostoff, in the Berliner Tageblatt, 
April 27th, 1916) ; it is churlishness, even in diplomatic 
procedure, which does not allow foreign ministers to leave 
Sofia before the arrival of Bulgarian ministers* ; it is always 
the exclusive respect for omnipotent force which inspires 
Gueshoff, the leader of the Popular Party, to explain his 
facing-round by " his disappointment as to the strength of 
Russia." The brutality of this egoist materialism has 
engendered shameless meanness. As we have said already : 
they are two aspects of the same character. 

* * 
* 

In circumstances under which the Bulgar cannot use 
his strength, he fights by falsehood, hypocrisy, cunning, 
calumny and trickery. When he complains, his noisy lamen- 
tations mount towards heaven, and when he fears anyone, 
he abases himself. He is prepared for any treason, and is 
proud of his guile. Sofia holds the record for lying. To 
cite one instance only, the Frankfurter Zeitung of August 
24th, 1916, published, through a despatch from Buda- 
Pesth, the following : 

" According to information from Sofia, the news of the 
Serbian defeat produced a veritable panic at Salonica. The 
debris of the defeated Serbian troops, most of them disarmed, 
rushed to Salonica. The population of the city, and above all 
the English soldiers, were in the greatest terror. Everybody 
ran to take refuge on board the ships." 

And in the Berliner Tageblatt of September 22nd the 
former Minister at Bucharest, Simeon Radeff, imagined 
quite a tale of adventures of which the hero would seem to 
have been " one of the secretaries." The Bucharest police, 
according to him, extracted from this secretary ten thousand 
francs in ready money, etc. j 

* It relates to the Serbian Minister in 1915, and the Roumanian 
Minister in 1916. This discourtesy is due to the fact that the Bulgarians — 
like the Germans, for that matter — ignoring respect for the law of nations, 
« do not feel any confidence in it. 

f During a walk on the eve of Roumanian intervention, the Austro- 
Hungarian Minister, Czernin, said to his Bulgarian colleague : " We shall 
never be good diplomatists, you and I. I never know how to lie, and 
you never know how to tell the truth." (Le Figaro, September, 191 6.) 

R 



2 46 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The figures quoted by the Sofia newspapers are as fan- 
tastic as those of Bulgarian statistics, which have dared 
to place unlettered Bulgaria fourth in rank among European 
States for the number of its literates. The Narodni Prava 
of June 22nd, 1916, discusses a letter addressed to Pashitch 
by the former Russian Minister at Belgrade, Hartwig, 
in which the latter counsels Serbia to hold herself in check ; 
the conciliatory tendency of the letter did not hinder the 
semi-official journal from attributing to it a provocative 
character, and to distort the meaning of a document that 
was clear and precise. The Sofia journals published, 
designedly, veritable romances concerning the fire at Tatoi, 
and narrated how plots were laid against King Constantine 
(Narodni Prava, September 25th, 1916, etc.). 

The greatest Bulgarian poet, Ivan Vazoff, lent himself 
to the interpretation of these displays of Chauvinism, 
coarseness, falsity, and boorishness. During these last 
two years, Vazoff' s verses have appeared in the place of 
honour in the Mir almost daily. They are a rhymed 
chronicle of Bulgaria, echoing all the tones of public opinion. 

The Beranger of Bulgaria has allowed himself, too often, 
to be carried away by the blindest passion, most ferocious 
hatred, and a most vulgar spirit. 

The Narodni Prava of November 19th, 1915, published 
with manifest pleasureVazoff 's " Parody on the 'Marseillaise,' " 
crammed with insults addressed to the French. In the 
Mir of December 5th, 1915, Vazoff had an extremely 
vulgar poem entitled, " The Monologue of King Peter." 
Elsewhere Vazoff calls the aged sovereign " the King 
Errant," and compares him to Cain and Macbeth. Para- 
phrasing the official communiques at the time when Scheide- 
mann made his declarations on the restoration of Serbia, 
the poet exhorts the world, in a piece entitled "The Fire," 
never to forget that it was Serbia who set fire to Europe. 
(Mir, November 13th, 1916.) 

But it is in his verses on the Roumanians that Vazoff 
has given the full measure of the nobility and loftiness 
of his inspiration. In the poem entitled " The Spirit of 
Ovid " (Mir, October 13th, 1916) Vazoff parodies the 
salutation of Deschanel to Roumania : 

" You are Roman putrefaction — cast awa}/ into far lands — • 
eternal Rome is cleansed of the stench — in ridding herself of 
you. . . . You are like your ancestors : crapulous, thieves, 
assassins, slaves." 



BRUTALITY AND BASENESS 247 

In another poem, which appeared, under the title 
" Pogrom," in the Mir of November ist, 1916, Vazoff asks 
for vengeance without pity on Roumania : 

" Let us make the ' pogrom ' against the empire of debauchery, 
envy and hatred, against the hot-bed of vice and monstrous 
morals. . . . Pogrom ! and let a terrible blow be dealt on the 
repulsive hyaena ! O Fatherland ! art thou avenged enough ? " 

In the verses," God has Heard Us," Vazoff praises divine 
justice which has descended on " guilty Serbia — the Slav 
Sodom " ; on " old Nikita roaming like a beggar " ; on 
" Greece, rotting like a corpse " ; and on " the overthrown 
Wallach. ..." 

It is because God has heard the Bulgarian cry — God, 
whom the Bulgars, as well as the Kaiser, consider to be 

their ally.* 

* * 

* 

In their greatest humanitarian manifestations, as in 
the verse of their most illustrious poets, the Bulgars have 
always obeyed the basest motives, in which brutality and 
meanness exercise an influence by turns. 

It is not pure hazard which has caused the Bulgars 
to be known all over the world, both by their lamentations 
over the violence they have suffered and the atrocities 
which they have committed themselves. It is only now 
that we have learnt, for example, of the cruelties inflicted 
by Bulgarian terrorism in Macedonia, cruelties executed 
at the very moment when Bulgarian Macedonian Com- 
mittees were bombarding public opinion in Europe and 
America with complaints of the sufferings " of their sub- 
jugated brethren." 

After their intervention in 1915, the Bulgars employed 
the same tactics. They established a reign of terror in 
the conquered Serbian provinces, whilst complaining un- 
ceasingly of atrocities committed, according to them, by 
the English and French soldiers in Macedonia. 

The Frankfurter Zeitung of December 18th, 1915, re- 
produces Bulgarian protests against the use of dum-dum 

* His political opponents avow publicly that Vazoff, by his attitude, 
has succeeded in augmenting his popularity. The Narodni Prava fre- 
quently reproduces his verses, whilst congratulating and complimenting 
the author. The Government decided to purchase a large number of 
volumes of his works (Balkanska Pochta of July 2nd, 1916, " Purchase of 
Vazoff 's Books for Soldiers and Reading-rooms in Macedonia"). The 
Minister of Education addressed to Vazoff a very flattering letter of thanks, 
published in extenso in the Narodni Prava of January 8th, 191 6. 



248 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

bullets. The Vossische Zeitung of February 3rd, 1916, 
publishes news from Sofia, according to which churches 
had been pillaged and profaned. The Mir, the Dnevnik, 
the Preporetz of August 5th publish amazing stories about 
the atrocities of the Allies in Macedonia. The Narodni 
Prava always calls the French and English " civilised 
savages." The Kambana of July 19th, 21st, and 28th, 
1916, published a veritable '' scandalous chronicle " on the 
morals of the Allied army on the Macedonian front. 

Under the heading, " Civilised Barbarians," the Kam- 
bana of October 3rd, 1916, had, from its correspondent at 
the front. " complaints of atrocities committed by the 
army of the Entente." The details of this despatch have 
the savour of melodrama : 

" Under divers pretexts men appear to have been exter- 
minated in all sorts of ways ; they were burnt alive, or muti- 
lated, or hanged ; young women seem to have been dishonoured 
in the most barbarous and cynical manner, to satisfy perverted 
instincts," etc., etc. " The greatest barbarian of them all, 
Sarrail, forbade, under a penalty of three years' imprisonment, 
that food should be given to the inhabitants, etc." 

The true meaning of this manoeuvre became plain 
when the Bulgars began to complain of the Roumanians, 
immediately after Roumania took part in the war. As 
though at a word of command, the Bulgarian press applied 
itself to only one question : the savage atrocities com- 
mitted by the Roumanians. At Sofia street agitations 
were even organised. 

On September nth, 1916, the pupils of all the high 
schools met in front of the Presidency of the Council, 
when Radoslavoff, coming out on the balcony, made them 
aware of the Roumanian crimes, and promised that they 
should be avenged. (Mir, September nth.) 

The Kambana terminated its article of November 12th 
thus : 

"It is a people base and cowardly, false and lying, de- 
bauched and violent ; it is not right that it should dwell on 
the earth, nor that it should enjoy the sunshine of heaven — 
the lot of the Roumanians ought to be death and annihilation ! 
In Roumania there is no regular army, there are only bands 
of brigands, and our war with Roumania should be turned into 
a ' Straaf expedition.' The ferocious animals in human form 
which constitute the Roumanian army must be exterminated 
in the name of humanity." 



BRUTALITY AND BASENESS 249 

The Preporetz of September 12th : 

" The Bulgarian people, in whose soul was stored up already 
terrible hatred for its felonious neighbour, will now be seized 
with an inexpressible nausea and unbounded indignation. The 
cry for pitiless vengeance will rise from the whole country and 
harden the tender hearts of our soldiers." 

The Vice-president of the Sobranie, Momtchiloff, ex- 
claims in the Outro of September 17th, 1916 : 

" Eye for eye, it was said in the Holy Scriptures. For the 
descendants of the Roman bandits this measure no longer 
suffices. When they are in question, we must apply the maxim : 
for one eye — a hundred ; for one tooth — a thousand ; for one 
Bulgarian village burned — ten Roumanian villages." 

The Kambana of October 26th, 1916, said : 

" Extermination ! Extermination root and branch ! . . . 
This dastardly nation does not deserve vengeance, but annihila- 
tion. Not on account of its past and present sins, but in order 
to secure for humanity a tranquil future, and the normal develop- 
ment of history. This people ought to disappear from the surface 
of the earth, like gangrene from the body. We must brandish 
again the blade of Attila and Tamerlane to cleanse 
the plain of the Danube /row these heirs of the Roman Catullus, 
become loathsome. Extermination ! Has not Christ Himself 
said that at the proper time we must burn the weeds of the 
field, so that later they may not choke and destroy the ears of 
corn ? " 

Complaints, quite as insidious and calculated, against 
the Serbian troops in the Dobrudja arose in the same 
journal, and from the same pen (Kambana of October 21st, 
letter from the front, signed " Bobochevski "). 

The author asks if, after all that has happened, the 
Bulgarians ought to continue to act so humanely towards 
the Serbs and their families in the conquered region — people 
who are so ungrateful for the benefits conferred on them ? 

However, it was easy to comprehend, immediately 
after these accusations, what purpose these protestations 
against Roumanian ferocity and appeals for vengeance 
were intended to serve. Bulgaria, in the Dobrudja, set 
about the " cleansing " proclaimed in the Sofia journals 
ever since Bulgarian intervention, as the mission of the 
Bulgars in Roumania. Besides, the fighting which took 
place on the Dobrudja front assumed the character of 
extermination. The Kambana of September 7th, 1916, 
gave some episodes of the battle near Dobritch : 

" The battlefield was strewn with corpses. Alone, a Russian 



250 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Lieut. -Colonel, wounded when commanding a regiment, was 
taken prisoner with his orderly. When the Russian soldiers 
cried for mercy, the Bulgars replied by redoubling their blows." 

The Bulgarian tactics are plain ; they cry out against 
the violence of others to stifle complaints against their 
own ; and they redouble their cries when they need a 
pretext for new crimes. 

Here again brutality and meanness are partners. 

* * 
* 

The Bulgars, who refuse themselves no virtue, do not 
trouble to defend themselves against the Byzantinism 
with which they are reproached. As in primitive times, 
they still appreciate cunning as a quality of the same value 
as force in the struggle for life. 

The Bulgarian satirical author, Aleko Konstantinoff, 
writes : 

" Whilst everywhere else the epithet ' sly ' brings with it 
the humiliating synonym of trickery, even of perjury, with us 
it confers on him who is so designated the right to be proud, as 
though it were a flattering compliment ; they say here : ' What 
cunning that fellow has ! May God grant him long life ! He 
has taken us all in, and we have never had the chance of doing 
the same to him. Bravo!'" (" Baya Gagno.") 

This special morality of Bulgarian politics has been 
defined in an interesting fashion by their friend and ally, 
Count Tisza, in his organ, Az Ujsag (September 9th, 1916), 
where he makes an apology for Bulgarian deceit : 

" Bulgaria has been crafty. For four days she hesitated 
to declare war, with the intention of gaining time for military 
preparations. Bulgarian diplomacy may thus boast of its 
duplicity. For we must not judge diplomacy by its acts, but 
by the results which ensue ; success has justified these tactics 
of the Bulgarian Minister of Foreign Affairs. 

" In foreign policy there is neither morality, nor faith, nor 
word of honour. If war is only, in short, a more brutal con- 
tinuation of foreign policy, the latter, in its turn, is only an 
introduction to war by milder means. Not only is everything 
permitted in war time, but it is our duty to put into action every 
means susceptible of securing victory. It is permitted to suspect, 
to feign, to mislead. Naturally, it is not the business of gentle- 
men ; but he who wishes only to remain a gentleman had better 
eschew diplomacy." 

If diplomacy is merely rascality, the Bulgars are past 
masters of the art in all respects. 



XXIII 

A PECULIAR MENTALITY 

The coarse materialism of Bulgarian politics is known 
under the name of " realist policy." Bulgarophils have 
named it so in order to explain and excuse it so much as 
to turn it to account. The present Allies of the Bulgars, 
the Germans, who have profited by it in the past, give it 
the same designation to keep in mind the ventures of 
to-morrow. 

The Vossische Zeitung of January 7th, 1917, published 
a letter from its correspondent at Sofia, which said : 

" . . . To count blindly on the fact that Bulgaria will always 
be, in all circumstances, good and evil, and for a long series of 
years, closely united to the Central Powers (because the alliance 
has enabled her to realise national unity, and with it, for the 
time at least, her political ' saturation ') would be equivalent 
to the mistake made by Russia, who, at a*given moment, lost 
all her former popularity, and separated Bulgaria from the 
Entente powers. 

" During recent years, and on the eve of the present war, 
Bulgarian statesmen have taken several occasions to declare 
that Bulgaria, with her ardent patriotism, is susceptible to no 
sentiment, and that she pursues only a realistic policy. A 
great Bulgarian politician, comparing Vienna and Petrograd, 
expressed himself thus : ' For us, the good aunt is the one who 
gives us the largest cake.' This truth has not been modified 
in any way since. After the war it will be seen more clearly 
that Bulgaria is only made for practical politics and does not 
shackle herself with sentimentality." 

It is brutal, but it is plain and simple. If Bulgarian 
policy were limited to that, the definition would suffice 
to explain and comprise everything. But, with the Bul- 
garians, the satisfaction of their desires, not depending 
only on their facility in passing from treason to treason, 
necessity has imposed on this frank and direct materialism 
more tortuous and underhand ways. And it is this that 

251 



252 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

has evolved that Bulgarian mentality, strange and incom- 
prehensible to European morals and logic. 

It is the mentality of the peasant, bounded by a few 
simple and inconsequent notions, dominated by a fixed 
idea which annihilates all others, or puts them in a false 
light. We cannot arrive at a just estimate of this mentality 
if we have not had occasion to verify it in a discussion, 
losing an hour without understanding and without making 
ourselves understood. 

Bulgarian political mentality, we have said, is dominated 
by a fixed idea, the creation of a Great Bulgaria, principal 
factor in the East, and mistress in the Balkans. The 
only means of satisfying this adventurous ambition was 
to ally it to that of the Germans. 

Indeed, Bulgaria took part in the game, but she never 
made up her mind to accept its risks. 

The Kambana of September 22nd, 1916, wrote : 

" Who constrained the Russians to make war against us ? 
We went to war with Serbia : what need had the Russians to 
attack us ? That we are neighbours is not a sufficient reason 
for righting us." 

General Tontcheff insists on the same idea in the Pester 
Lloyd of September 27th : 

" It is not we who attacked the Russians, it is they who 
marched against us." 

So, whilst fighting all the time in the German ranks, 
the Bulgars are astonished to be treated as enemies by 
those against whom they declare they never went to war. 

The Mir of September 15th, 1916, is astonished that 
the Greeks are accused of treason because " they did not 
wish to march to their ruin in order to save the Serbs. ..." 
" Bulgaria was right in acting as she did. ..." " And 
when the Russians come to the Balkans to fight against 
us," concludes the Mir, " we cannot do otherwise than 
defend ourselves. It is not treason, but defence." In 
the Dnevnik of September 7th, and the Mir of September 
14th (harangue of Mme. Karaveloff to the crowd in front 
of the Ministry), it is always the same argument : treason 
is on the Russian side only. A year before, during the 
first days of the intervention, the deputy of the Popular 
Party (Gueshovist) Boris Vazoff, denounced the Russian 
" crime," the bombardment of Varna. (Berliner Tageblait^ 
October 30th, 1915.) 



A PECULIAR MENTALITY 253 

Here are two most interesting documents bearing 
witness to the same mentality. 

In the article by Professor Rossier, which appeared in 
the Gazette de Lausanne of May 17th, 1916, we read : 

" The Bulgarian contention is characteristic. It has been 
stated to me by a man of high intelligence and perfect urbanity. 
The famous surprise attack of 1913 was wrong, he said. Even 
the recent offensive against the Serbs is not perhaps absolutely 
correct. But politics are made up of realities. The strength 
of Serbia is broken. Even the nation exists no longer ; the 
half of it had perished by hunger, when it returned to its devas- 
tated homes and fields, after following the retreat of the soldiers 
at too great a distance. That being so, why persist in trying 
to revive a corpse ? why dispute the possession by Bulgaria 
of Macedonia, which belongs to her by right and by deed ? why 
this menace of Salonica which obliges the Government to tighten 
its bonds with Germany ? " 

The Mir of September 7th, 1916, develops the same 
thesis more amply : 

" Bidgaria had before her two roads, and each had something 
to be said for it. Each party was convinced that the road chosen 
by it was the best and the only safe one. But, naturally, the 
two roads coidd not be utilised at the same time, and once one was 
chosen, we could no longer turn back and follow another. That 
is how the road we chose has brought us into conflict, not only 
with the Serbs, but also with the Great Powers, against whom 
we never wished to battle ; but, on the contrary, from whom 
we have always expected encouragement in our task. 

" Bulgaria has succeeded in conquering, at the price of great 
sacrifices, the countries of which she has dreamed so long. But 
we cannot expect that England, France, and Russia will shout, 
' Bravo, Bulgars ! ' . . . However, we have the right to ask 
ourselves : Do not they know that their fate depends, not on what 
-is going to happen in the Balkans, but on what happens on the 
great fronts between the forces of the Great Powers there ? 

" Then, why do not they leave us alone P Why have they done 
their utmost to extend the front even to us ? 

" We should not have dared to oppose our small forces to 
the English, French, and Russians if they had not left their 
own fronts and their proper zones to come into our regions in 
order to seek more facile successes. No, it is not we who raise 
our hands against them, it is they who raise their hands against us." 

The moral of these arguments of the Mir is very simple : 
"" Since all our parties, say the Bulgars, were agreed on the 
object — already realised — Bulgaria cannot be chided for not 
■having quibbled much over ways and means. We were and 



254 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

are the accomplices of the great malefactors whom we 
have aided, and who have aided us to knock down and rob 
a small neighbour, doing him the greatest harm possible. 
But we do not understand why the big friends of this small 
neighbour persist in interfering, and in trying to do us 
harm now, when we ask them only to leave us to the tranquil 
enjoyment of our booty. We were their enemies so long 
as we had not realised our aspirations. We remain united 
with our actual allies in virtue of our pact with them. But, 
since we are asking nothing more of anyone, why not leave us 
alone ? If the service rendered by us to the Central Powers 
has the importance we attribute to it on every occasion,* 
it is possible that the struggle in which twenty million men 
are engaged may be prolonged for a few months, and cost 
the Entente some hundreds of thousands more victims. 
But, for the evil which, by an unfortunate but profitable 
necessity, we have done to others, why make us suffer an 
evil which at present would be almost useless ? . . . We 
Bulgarians never make others suffer unless there is some- 
thing to be made out of it. It is because we are realists : 
we do not love for the sake of sentiment, we hate only by 
necessity, and we reckon on our own interests only, setting 
aside all conventional rules of reason, morality, or justice." 
It is a mentality apart. If it is difficult to understand it, 
we should require a peculiar mentality to excuse it. 



In order to comprehend this peculiar mentality, we must 
follow the fluctuations of opinion and utilitarian logic 
in varying times and circumstances. 

After the first successes on the Roumanian front, which 
dissipated anxiety and reserve, this same Mir, in the same 
month of September, only sixteen days later, paraphrases 
the base article of September 7th with haughty audacity : 

" The efforts of all tended to bring about the greatest success 
in the only direction which had been adopted. After another 
year we can be more than satisfied. . . . Among the great 
armies, the examination passed by the German Army on the 
battlefields confers on its people the right to rank at the head 
of the great nations. Among the small armies, that of Bulgaria 
passed its examination most brilliantly ; among the small 

* The Mir said on April 17th, 1916: "The case of Bulgaria 
proves the truth of the Bulgarian saying that ' the pebble can overturn 
the carriage '; the intervention of Bulgaria has produced the greatest 
change." 



A PECULIAR MENTALITY 255 

nations it is therefore to ws Bulgarians that belongs the place which 
is held by the Germans among the great ones. We are not to 
blame for the sanguinary encounters with the English, French, 
and Russians ; we did not seek them ; we did not go to their 
own fronts to add a blow the more to those they received from our 
allies. . . . For here they have met with, and will meet with 
again, a double or triple resistance, having against them the 
united forces of the Central Alliance. ... A close brotherhood 
of the German, Austro-Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Turkish 
armies, fighting shoulder to shoulder, will contribute enormously 
to the cementing of the alliance between their respective nations ; 
their political leaders can say with reason : every evil has its 
good side." (Mir, September 23rd.) 

If forecasts prove mistaken, the tone changes ; but the 
mentality continues its fluctuations. 

When peace was under discussion, apropos of the German 
offers and the Wilson note, the Bulgarians counted on the 
acceptance of Bulgarian claims by both belligerents. 

During the debates on the Budget, Radoslavoff declared : 

" It is we who can the most easily lay down our conditions, 
for they are fixed, and both sides acknowledge their justice ; I 
have declarations thereon from the Entente also." (Echo de Bulgarie, 
January 3rd, 1917.) 

This equivocal and sensational insinuation excited the 
curiosity of the simple ; it caused uneasiness for a moment 
even at Berlin. The allies of the Bulgars were the first to 
express their astonishment at these strange political explana- 
tions. 

Count Reventlow hastened to dissipate the misunder- 
standing in the Tageszeitung. The Pester Lloyd did the 
same, with laughter. And the Berliner Tageblatt (January 
2nd, 1917) clenched the matter by this comment : 

" At the session of the Bulgarian Parliament on December 
30th the President of the Bulgarian Council, Radoslavoff, 
finished his speech as follows : ' I have documents which attest 
that our enemies acknowledge the justice of what we demand.' 
In certain circles it is sought to conclude from these words 
that the Entente Powers have made new offers to Bulgaria. 
This is untrue. M. Radoslavoff only spoke of proposals by 
which the Entente Powers sought to rally Bulgaria to their side 
before she intervened in the war. At that time the . Entente 
Powers declared, as is well known, through their representatives 
at Sofia, that they were in a position to obtain from Serbia the 
cession of Serbian Macedonia to Bulgaria." 

But the sally of the Minister-President Radoslavoff 



256 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

was not a piece of fireworks ; it contained a reservation 
from the rich store of Bulgarian arguments, arbitrary, 
elastic, and adapted to all needs and situations. The 
leader of the Opposition, Gueshoff (Popular Party), formu- 
lated it in the Mir of January 2nd more explicitly. After 
tracing the story of the Great Bulgaria of San Stefano, 
Gueshoff added : 

" In recalling these facts, we have the right to ask ourselves : 
Can there still be a question as to the frontiers of our nation ? 
Recognised by the powers which to-day form the Entente and the 
Alliance, consecrated by Bulgarian blood, how could the rights 
of the Bulgarian people be misjudged at the conclusion of peace ?" 

This is the only belligerent in the great world war which 
arrogates to itself the right to put such a question. 

Bulgarian mentality in its entirety is contained in this 
logic and this moral code : embark on any adventure without 
accepting any risk, gamble for no matter what stakes 
without paying any, arrogate to oneself the sovereign right 
of gaining at all costs and in every case. There is only 
one logic and one moral code : those which will finish by 
building up either the great Middle-European Bulgaria by 
the brute force of our friends, or the Great Bulgaria of San 
Stefano by the imprudent sentimentality of our enemies. 

This mentality is illustrated clearly by the following 
conclusion of an article recently published by the Preporetz 
(April 24th, 1917) entitled " Vae Victis ! " : 

" All means are justified, provided that we are not beaten." 



CHAPTER XXIV 

IN DEROGATION OF ALL RULES AND CONVENTIONS 

Having set at naught all moral obligations, the Bulgars 
showed themselves to be equally anarchical with regard 
to all dictates of justice. Whoever, in the great war, 
has had to do with Bulgarian laws, and with the magistrates 
charged with their interpretation, is perfectly well aware 
of this. 

If, generally speaking, the lot of a conquered country is 
a sad one, that of a country subjugated by an enemy so 
evilly disposed is doubly lamentable. We may imagine 
the condition of Serbia after two years passed under the 
domination of an enemy such as that whose singular code 
of morals, and quite special mentality, we have examined 
in the preceding pages. 

It is reasonable to suppose that the Bulgarian conquerors 
have shown in their administration of the occupied Serbian 
provinces the same absence of scruples that they have 
manifested in so many other matters, and that they have 
evinced as little respect for the international usages admitted 
by civilised nations as for the most elementary principles 
of justice and morality in general. 

Nevertheless, the boldest suppositions as to the arbi- 
trary conduct of Bulgarian authorities and their violation 
of justice do not come up to the reality. Never, at any 
period of history, was the population of an occupied terri- 
tory put to such a degree outside the pale of the most funda- 
mental laws and regulations respected until now, at all 
epochs and in all countries. 

From the outset of the occupation of a great part of the 
Serbian provinces, the Bulgarians decided to consider the 
occupation as permanent, whereas during the whole period 
of the war it could only be regarded as provisional. They 
treated Serbian territory as definitely annexed, and to give 
an appearance of reason to their point of view they gave 
themselves out to be " liberators." 

257 



258 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Bulgars have their own way of working out the 
liberation of a people, as in everything else. The regime of 
oppression began by denationalisation. They proceeded syste- 
matically to the destruction of all national emblems, objects 
and signs. Schoolmasters and priests, schools, colleges 
and books might have sustained the Serbs efficaciously 
in the defence of their nationality ; so the Bulgarian 
authorities hastened to banish professors, priests, and 
teachers, to close schools and burn books. 

The deportations took place en masse. 

The Narodni Prava of January 28th, 1916, said : 

" A new convoy of 500 deported Serbs has been sent from 
Macedonia to Sofia. Among them is a large number of priests." 

Dr. Kallistratos wrote in the Nea Hemera : 

" Immediately after the entry of the Bulgars into Monastir 
order was given to transport to Sofia all the Serbs, above all, 
the priests and schoolmasters, no matter from what part of 
Serbia they came. And the deported priests and teachers 
were replaced by Bulgarian priests and teachers." 

The Chronos of May 18th, 1916, quoted the Zar'ia, 
according to which the Holy Synod had already delegated 
eighty Bulgarian priests to Macedonian parishes. 

The Outro of April 29th, 1916, wrote : 

" The Bulgarian Synod intends to open next year two 
seminaries in the occupied Serbian provinces." 

The closed Serbian schools were reopened as Bulgarian 
schools. The feverish haste with which the Bulgarian 
authorities established their schools is well explained in a 
declaration of the Minister Petcheff , published by the Outro 
of July 1st, 1916 : 

" The role of the schools will be the most important here. 
The schools will be the torches to enlighten the understanding 
of our kindred, and to prepare the way for future enterprises. 
It is on this account I have applied myself from this year to 
the organisation of the schools in the new provinces." 

According to the Balkanska Pochta of November 24th, 
the Budget for the new provinces provided for 270 elemen- 
tary schools,with 450 teachers and 309 professors of colleges. 

The Dnevnik of August 23rd, 1916, said, " Colleges have 
been established at Pojarevatz, Svilaynatz and Veliko 
Gradishta," that is to say, towns in the centre of the kingdom, 
in classic regions of Serbian territory. 

The Serbs, for that matter, were not only forced to allow 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 259 

their children to be Bulgarised, but condemned to deprive 
themselves of every book written in the national language, 
of every picture, of every object which might, remind them 
of their nationality. Serbian books, rifled from every house, 
were burnt on the spot or sent to Bulgaria. 

A Serb, escaped from Vrania, Mitar Petrovitch, made at 
the Serbian Ministry of the Interior the following deposi- 
tion : 

" The Bulgars took away all Serbian books, manuscripts, 
maps, and engravings. All the inhabitants of Vrania were 
obliged to deliver to the military commandant all the Serbian 
books they possessed. The books were then burnt." (Serbian 
Blue Book, No. 158.) 

And the Outro of April 26th, 1916, wrote : 

" The Ministry of Commerce has just decreed that the 

books collected in the new provinces shall be handed to the 

National Printing Office in place of being simply destroyed. 

They will be utilised as raw material for the manufacture of 

paper and valued at 15 centimes a kilo." 

In the place of the destroyed Serbian books and journals, 
Bulgarian books were distributed far and wide. The 
inhabitants, who could not deny themselves reading entirely, 
were thus obliged to learn Bulgarian. Reading rooms were 
established every where. The Ministry of Education busied 
itself with the forwarding and diffusion of Bulgarian books 
throughout the invaded regions According to the Zar'ia 
of August 3rd, 1916, 100,000 levs (francs) were devoted to 
the purchase of books for the reading-rooms. 

The results of this intense and systematic Bulgarisation 
have been exceedingly small, however. The " Bulgarian 
population, liberated from the Serbian yoke," has obsti- 
nately determined to preserve intact its Serbian culture 
and nationality. The Bulgarians were forced to acknow- 
ledge, in the autumn of 19 16, that the reluctance of the 
people to send their children to the Bulgarian schools 
necessitated the closing of those institutions, or at least 
a reduction in the number of classes, for want of a sufficient 
number of pupils. (See Chapter IV.) 

The population of the occupied Serbian territory was 
so far from being Bulgarian that the " liberators " did not 
hesitate to pillage and ruin the country they pretended to 
liberate. If they had sincerely regarded the region occu- 
pied as Bulgarian, they would certainly have brought to 
bear a little prudence on the systematic devastation. On 



260 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

the contrary, pillage obtained to a degree beyond concep- 
tion, and surpassed anything perpetrated elsewhere. It 
was not carried on only with the advance of the troops, 
but was proceeded with methodically by the civil and mili- 
tary authorities charged with organising and administering 
the country once it was occupied. They began by requisi- 
tioning everything : produce, furniture, means of transport, 
cattle. The Outro (March 9th) wrote : 

" The Ministry of Agriculture has ordered the cattle re- 
quisitioned in the Morava district to be sent to Bulgaria and 
distributed among the fanners of the older regions of the kingdom, 
in order to improve the native breeds. Cattle from Bulgaria 
will be sent into the Morava." 

So the poor Bulgarian cattle replaced the Serbian stock. 
The Narodni Prava of April 20th, 1917, announces that they 
are gathering in the wool : the manufacturers will pay for 
it in Bulgaria, whilst it will be requisitioned in Macedonia 
and* the Morava. They took from the inhabitants every- 
thing they had. And after despoiling them completely, 
they demanded taxes from them. According to Art. 48 
of The Hague regulations, the taxes were to be collected 
according to the rules of the cess and the incidence fixed by 
Serbian laws. The Bulgarians, thinking these laws too 
clement, ignored them and applied a special system of 
assessment and collection. 

The Preporetz of November 20th, 1916, publishes the 
regulations on the distribution of direct taxation of Septem- 
ber 23rd, promulgated on October 17th. It reproaches the 
Government with not having thought of it sooner. The 
Outro of October 7th, 1916, is informed that " the Ministry 
of Finance has already given orders to its functionaries 
in the Morava to begin the collection of direct taxes." 

After extracting from the inhabitants their goods, 
furniture, stores, and leased cattle, the Bulgars remembered 
that they must have on them a certain quantity of Serbian 
money. This money was still current at its full value. 
To accelerate the ruin of the country if was necessary to 
depreciate it. So, on October 27th, 1916, the Mir announced : 

" By order of the Ministry of Finance, the National Bank 
has instructed its branches and agencies to change dinars 
(Serbian francs) for Bulgarian money, counting the dinar at 
50 centimes. Serbian banknotes have no value, and can be 
exported. The administrative authorities and others have 
been ordered not to permit the exportation of Serbian silver 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 261 

coins. Smugglers of Serbian silver will be brought before 
military tribunals. After December 31st of the present year, 
any person found in possession of Serbian silver money will he 
prosecuted as a receiver of contraband." 

On the one hand they declare banknotes of no value, 
on the other they depreciate the value of silver by 50 per 
cent. ; and as a climax, the National Bank of Bulgaria 
has made arrangements with the civil and military authori- 
ties to collect all the gold in the possession of the inhabitants 
of the occupied provinces. The picture is complete. 

* * 
* 

The implacable system of Bulgarian pillage was applied, 
above all, to the property of absent owners. All who were 
absent, those who had fled before the enemy invasion, 
like those who, as Serbian soldiers, were obliged to retreat 
with the army, those even who had been taken away from their 
village and interned by the Bulgars, were despoiled of every- 
thing. Their property was declared ownerless. By a 
monstrous procedure, the Bulgars drove away the owners 
to legitimise the presumption of their non-existence ! 

They even took away the tombs from the graveyards. 
The Dnevnik of February 24th wrote : 

" A wagon loaded with tombstones has arrived at the Sofia 
station. We think the best way of utilising these monuments 
would be to place them on the graves of our national workmen, 
whose tombs are now in a sad state." 

The spoliation of the property-owners of the occupied 
Serbian provinces was decided on, and put in execution 
by the authorities from the beginning of the occupation. 
The measure was soon sanctioned by the Government : 

" The King has confirmed the decision, taken by Govern- 
ment for the fourth time, to hand over to the State the property 
of those who, having abandoned their country, have not yet 
returned." (Dnevnik, March 17th, 1916.) |f| 

And, finally, the Sobranie, in its turn, at the sitting 
of November 3rd, 1916, sanctioned all the measures of 
spoliation by passing the law on the employ of trophies of 
war, including vacant property. Two orators only spoke 
against the bill, Kirkoff (Extreme Socialist) and Saderoff 
(Radical). All the others approved, and the bill was passed. 

Divers uses were made of the property seized. The 



262 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

furniture was, first of all, amassed in Bulgaria. The 
Dnevnik of February 12th, 1916, said : 

" Every day wagons full of household goods arrive at the 
Sofia station. They are being sold by auction as they are 
brought in." 

The Outro of April 19th, 1916, wrote : 

" The Ministry of Agriculture and Public Domains has 
nominated a chief inspector for the ownerless goods coming 
from Serbia. They will be sold very shortly by public auction." 

And the Dnevnik of April 30th announced : 
" The Ministry of Agriculture and Public Domains has 
ordered a new sale by public auction of vacant property in the 
provinces of the Morava. If the number of bidders is insuffi- 
cient, or if bids are too low, a commission will be designated 
to deal with the property otherwise than by auction. The 
fiscal authorities of Monastir have commenced to sell by auction 
every Thursday the shops, houses, and mills remaining without 
owners." 

The Dnevnik of May 20th, 1916, wrote : 

" The Ministry of Agriculture and Public Domains has 
appointed a commission, which will proceed to sell publicly, 
every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday, goods with- 
out owners." 

We read in the Narodni Prava of June 16th : 
" There should arrive shortly r,ooo kilos of wool, not belong- 
ing to anyone ; it will be sold, as weU as 17,000 kilos of coffee. 
The sale will consist of small lots up to 500 kilos, in order that 
small tradesmen may lay in a stock of these articles." 

The Outro wrote on October 14th : 

" The working season being near, the Minister of Agriculture 
has commanded the sale by auction, in the shortest delay, to 
those who have need of it, of all property ' without owners.' " 

Soldiers and functionaries also profited by this rapine. 
The Balkanska Pochta of September 13th, 1916, wrote : 

" Tobacco without owners will be granted to the army. It 
is estimated to consist of more than a million kilograms." 

The Mir of October 10th said : 

" All articles without owners, such as shoes, clothing, etc., 
seized in the new provinces, will be distributed among the 
families of those who are mobilised, and among the poor, by 
order of the Minister of Agriculture, and through the inter- 
mediary of the Minister of War." 

The Outro of November 20th, 1916, announced that 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 263 

*' authority has been given to grant to local functionaries 
in the new provinces furniture without owners. The grant 
is provisional." 

All agricultural implements were seized. The Dnevnik 
of February ist, 1916, wrote : 

" All agricultural machinery seized as booty of the State 
in the Morava region has been collected at the Sofia arsenal 
to be repaired. It will be devoted afterwards to the needs of 
our farmers. ..." 

The Preporetz of October 6th, 1916, mentioned it also : 

" The Council of Ministers has decided to grant all agricul- 
tural implements ' without owners ' to the Bulgarian National 
Bank, which will repair them and sell them to the agricultural 
population." 

No scruple of any sort has ever restrained the Bulgars 
in their depredations, and they have carried their rage 
for pillage as far as sacrilege. The sacking of the monastery 
of Detchani is a typical episode of this nature. 

Detchani, a rare gem of old national Serbian architecture, 
a place of pilgrimage, and a sanctuary where for long cen- 
turies precious stones and metals, jewels, banners, manu- 
scripts, all the inestimable relics witnessing to the national 
and religious life of Serbia, have been accumulating, — Det- 
chani, declared inviolable by the firmans even of Turkish 
Sultans, and always respected by the Ottomans, — Detchani, 
the Medina of the Serbs, was treated by the Bulgars as a 
rich bric-a-brac shop would be by burglars — as a fine place to 
plunder. 

The Tribune de Geneve of September 8th, 1916, narrating 
the deed under the signature of the author of this book, 
concluded thus : 

" The story is worth telling with some detail, for it has given 
rise to a violent polemic between Austrians, Magyars, and 
Bulgars. In the Narodni Prava of July 31st, a Bulgarian 
ethnologist, Dr. Stoiloff, states that as member of a commis- 
sion of five persons, under the presidency of a general, he went 
to Detchani immediately after its capture by Bulgarian troops. 

" He found there all the treasure and precious objects cata- 
logued in Serbian publications, classified them, and sent them 
to the Minister of Education at Sofia. To reassure public 
opinion, I declare — writes Dr. Stoiloff — that all the objects of 
historical value, as well as those of less importance, are at Sofia, 
and the Minister of Education alone knows about them. 

" Everything was not discovered, for the honveds and 



264 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Magyar territorials unearthed still more treasures, which archaeo- 
logists from Vienna and Budapesth are engaged in examining 
and determining their value. But these opulent spoils have 
become an apple of discord between the two capitals of the 
monarchy — Vienna lays claim to them, and Pesth, unwilling 
to give them up, vehemently maintains her prior rights. The 
Pesti Hirlap of August 4th writes thus about the matter : ' The 
Magyar honveds, intensely interested in the monastery of 
Detchani, were obliged even to make bayonet charges in order 
to capture it. Are not Magyar savants anxious to know what 
is contained in this Serbian Czestohowa ? For several centuries 
our destiny was bound up in that of the Serbian State, and we 
can imagine how many documents there are yonder which 
have not been scanned by us. Why should the Hofmuseum 
have more right than the National Magyar Museum to the 
possession of these treasures ? ' 

" However, in the mountains amid which stands the ancient 
monastery, a legend still survives which attributes to the sacred 
spot the virtue of protecting the region against harm. Whoever 
touches Detchani is condemned to certain death. And nobody 
has ever dared to touch it. . . ." 

The provisions of The Hague Congress which have been 
most frequently violated in the course of the present war are, 
without doubt, those relating to the rights of private 
property ; Article 23g forbids the seizure or distribution 
of enemy properties ; Article 46 says textually that " private 
property must be respected " ; Article 47 says " pillage is 
formally forbidden " ; Article 53, " the army which occupies 
a territory can seize only moneys, funds, and chargeable 
values belonging strictly to the State." But if the viola- 
tions committed by the Germans and Austrians have been, 
in the majority of cases, the acts of soldiers, in such sort 
that responsibility rests solely on the commanders and their 
subalterns, those committed by the Bulgars are distinguished 
by a general and systematic mode of procedure. It is the 
Bulgars who have developed the theory of the lapse of the 
rights of property in virtue of the absence of the owner, 
an absurd theory, but which, approved openly, decreed even, 
by the Government, has served as a basis for the systematic 
ruin of the country. It is the first time in the history of 
the world that pillage has been regulated and legalised by 
a public act. The honour belongs to the Bulgars. 



The impoverishment, the calculated ruin of the occupied 
country may be explained first by hatred towards the Serbian 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 265 

element, and afterwards by the hope of having at its mercy 
and handling more easily a population reduced to indigence. 
But that was not enough. It was necessary to get rid of 
every person of influence, however small, of all who by their 
education or social position might have encouraged the 
people to defend their nationality. Therefore recourse 
was had to deportation. 

As a prelude to this " cleansing," assassinations were 
committed, in Macedonia chiefly, and proof is to be found 
in the Serbian Blue Book of 19 16.* 

Other crimes are narrated in the Appendices 24, 29, 30, 
31, 32, 36 of the Blue Book, and how many remain un- 
known ! 

The Temps of May 10th, 1917, publishes the following 
on the Bulgarian regime in Serbia : 

"It appears from the depositions of the latest Bulgarian 
deserters that the terror inaugurated by the Sofia Government 
in conquered Serbia is at its height. To the massacre of the 
population which protested against forced enrolment of Serbian 
citizens under the Bulgarian flag, has just been added execu- 
tions of the notables of several Serbian towns. Thus, two priests 
of the town of Leskovatz, in Southern Serbia, the arch-priest 
Komnenovitch, and the priest Kotsich, were shot not long ago. 
Further south, in the town of Vrania, all the Serbian priests, 

* " I know positively that they killed eight Serbs in the department 
of Ghevgheli. I can only give the names of two victims : Dango George- 
vitch, schoolmaster, and Athansius Yovanovitch, both of Stoyakovo." 
(Deposition of George Diaskis, Blue Book Appendix, No. 17.) 

" The Bulgars have assassinated all those who had been indicated 
to them as partisans or friends of the Serbs under the Ottoman regime. 
Every morning the banks of the Vardar were strewn with numerous 
Serbian corpses." (Blue Book, Appendix No. 19.) 

" The Bulgars commit atrocities impossible to describe. They 
have burnt down a number of villages ; they set fire to them at night, 
and when the affrighted inhabitants rush out of their homes the Bulgars 
shoot them like game. ... At Koumanovo the Bulgars tied together 
eighty Serbs, stabbed them to death with knives, and threw them into 
the river in a mass." (Blue Book, Appendix No. 20.) 

" When the Bulgarian Army entered Veles, two comitajis, Tode 
Haji-Jorko and Temelko Karpouz, made up a list of the proscribed. 
Just after the Serbian retreat on Babuna, two Bulgarian companies 
and one squadron ransacked the villages in search of the men inscribed 
on the list. Many of them were taken and killed on the spot." (Blue 
Book, Appendix No. 22.) 

" At Koumanovo they assassinated Danilo Tsokitch, schoolmaster ; 
Orde Dragomanovitch, merchant ; Denko Tchuma, and twelve other 
influential citizens. At Stari Petritchani they assassinated Blajo Smilian- 
ski. In the environs of Koumanovo they killed Stevan Georgevitch, 
priest of Tchelopek ; Blajo N. of Mladi Nagoritchani ; Canon Vladimir, 
monk of the convent of Saint-Prohor of Ptchinia ; the priest Stevan of 
the same convent, and another priest whose name I know not." (Blue 
Book, Appendix No. 26.) 



266 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

to the number of six, were executed. Besides, the Bulgars 
shot several notables of the same place. Among the victims 
were : Milkovitch, Mayor, and George Tsoupara, Municipal 
Councillor ; Djourdjevitch, President of the Tribunal ; Mikitch, 
judge at the tribunal ; Vakirovitch, manufacturer, all former 
deputies ; Vlakovitch, advocate ; Djokitch, industrial ; and 
Pantazievitch, banker." 

The work of the comitajis accomplished, they proceeded 
to the deportations. 

" Tetovo has become a desert. Many citizens have been 
deported and interned in Bulgaria. As striking examples may 
be named Yastro Tinovitch, contractor ; Sima Miritch, hair- 
dresser ; Spira Georgevitch, merchant ; Mitcha Autitch, shoe- 
maker. (Blue Book, Appendix No. 25.) A score of influential 
men of Resan and the two brothers Srezovitch (Krsta and Sava) 
have been taken to Sofia. (Blue Book, Appendix No. 31.) 

" The priests, schoolmasters, all the influential citizens, as 
well as a large number of functionaries have been deported to 
Bulgaria. The camps of the deported are at Sofia, Philippo- 
polis, Roustchouk, and Adrianople. (Blue Book, Appendix 
No. 34.) 

And so on. They left in the country only the women 
and children (and not all of them) and some few men 
deemed harmless. Every influential and educated person 
was interned in the concentration camps in Bulgaria. It 
must be acknowledged that this practice, absolutely con- 
trary to the rules of international law, is not a Bulgarian 
speciality. Their allies, the Germans, as well as the Aus- 
trians, have applied it also, on a vast scale. But the Bul- 
garians have found the means of surpassing their allies 
in the violation of the principles of justice. They differ 
from the Austrians and Germans in refusing to give the least 
indication as to the deported. They have forbidden them 
all correspondence. Not only could no lists of the deported 
be obtained, but it was impossible for their families to get 
the slightest information about them. The Serbian Govern- 
ment, the Bureau of Information instituted according to 
Article 14 of The Hague regulations, encountered the syste- 
matic refusal of the Bulgarian authorities to furnish lists 
of the deported and of prisoners of war, or to afford informa- 
tion concerning them. 

On what did the Bulgarian authorities base their action ? 
On a conception radically false, contradicting juridical 
ruling and the evidence of fact ; on the presumption that 
the Serbian State no longer existed : that consequently the 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 267 

Serbian Red Cross and the Serbian Bureau of Information, 
instituted in accordance with Article 14 of The Hague 
regulations, had ceased to exist ; that Serbian territory had 
become Bulgarian, and that its inhabitants and all former 
Serbian subjects made prisoners or deported to Bulgaria 
were ipso facto Bulgarian subjects. The deported and 
prisoners being Bulgarian subjects, Bulgaria was not 
accountable for them to anyone. Even supposing them to 
be Bulgarians, the Bulgarian State, by a strange contradic- 
tion, kept them in the condition of deported and prisoners. 
And this theory was approved by the Bulgarian Red Cross, 
which, forgetting its humanitarian duties, made itself 
subservient to the political aims of its Government. 

" On account of the occupation of all Serbian territory by 
the Bulgarian and Allied Armies, no Serbian authority, and in 
consequence the Serbian Red Cross Society, any longer exists 
in the country." (Circular of the Bulgarian Red Cross, pub- 
lished in all Bulgarian journals. Cf. Balkanska Pochta, Septem- 
ber 20th, 1916.) 

By this ridiculous conception of the jus belli, the Bulgars 
have violated not only the positive rules of international 
conventions signed and ratified by Bulgaria, but also prin- 
ciples admitted for centuries in the relations between States. 
The undisputed principle, not only in theory but in practice, 
was that occupation was not sufficient to confer sovereignty 
on the occupier, and the rights appertaining to it. In order 
that a conqueror might annex territory and dispose of it 
as a master, it was necessary that the dispossessed State 
should have ceased to exist, or should sign a treaty creating 
the legal title required for the definite establishment of the 
right of conquest. So long as the treaty of peace or the 
disappearance of the conquered State is not accomplished, 
the occupier must consider the occupied territory as still 
under its old sovereignty, and its inhabitants as subjects 
of the enemy State. To maintain that the Serbs had become 
Bulgarian subjects, Bulgaria declared that Serbia no longer 
existed as a State, the totality of its territory being occupied. 
It was false in principle, because occupation, even of the 
whole territory, does not suffice if the State has preserved 
all its other attributions and if the war continues ; and such 
was the case here. Serbia, doubtless, had seen all her 
territory occupied, but she had preserved her army, which 
is the best sign of existence in a State at war. The Serbian 
Army existed and fought against these same Bulgarians. 



268 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

As for the Red Cross, it is clearly evident, from the text 
and spirit of the Geneva Convention of 1906, and the acts 
regulating the organisation of these societies, that the Red 
Cross is not attached to the territory but to the army. By its 
object in itself, the Red Cross should aid the service of the 
military medical staff ; so long as a Serbian Army exists, a 
Serbian Red Cross must exist, and its place is where the 
army is. The question of territory has nothing to do with 
it. 

Bulgaria refused also to recognise the Bureau of Infor- 
mation established by Serbia in virtue of Article 14 of The 
Hague regulations. This bureau, however, continued to 
perform its functions and maintained all the reasons for its 
existence. In the retreat of 1915 the Serbian Army took 
its prisoners with it. The Bureau of Information, charged 
with the affairs of prisoners, followed them naturally. 
Serbia, having lost her territory for the time being, interned 
her prisoners on allied territory ; after the reconstitution 
of her army she resumed hostilities in 1916 and made new 
prisoners. All these prisoners, old and new, were always 
assembled in a special group and confided to Serbian 
administration ; the Bureau of Information, which remained 
the same as before the occupation of Serbia, continued to 
establish the status of each individual prisoner, and to 
send all information and all correspondence of the prisoners 
to the enemy States. Its existence was legitimate, and it 
retained all its prerogatives. So long as Serbia continued 
to hold prisoners she must have her Bureau of Informa- 
tion. That bureau ought to be, not in occupied Serbia, 
but in proximity to the prisoners. That is logical. And 
the bureau, in virtue of reciprocity, and basing itself on the 
rules laid down at The Hague Convention of 1907, was right 
in requiring to be supplied with all information concerning 
the Serbian prisoners and interned persons in Bulgaria. 

To this legitimate right, to this absolutely well-founded 
claim, Bulgaria responded by a refusal. 

* * 

* 

But it is in the question of recruiting that Bulgaria 
h as drawn the most monstrous conclusions from her preten- 
sion to consider the Serbian State as non-existing. After 
violating the most sacred rights of humanity, in breaking 
up families, in plundering estates, in forbidding all manifes- 
tation of nationality, Bulgaria perceived that she had omitted 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 269 

to inflict a last cruelty. She applied herself to repair the 
negligence : she began to organise recruiting in the occupied 
provinces, thus obliging the inhabitants to fight against 
their country and against their own army. On the subject 
of recruiting, the Serbian Blue Book of 1916 furnished some 
peremptory documents. In the first place the deposition 
of a neutral subject to the Serbian Minister of Foreign 
Affairs (Appendix No. 45) : " They recruit for the army 
all men from 18 to 60 years of age." An extract from an 
official report supports this (Appendix No. 48). " They have 
recruited for the army all those who, in the part of Serbia 
occupied by the Bulgars, have been recognised as fit for 
military service." Extracts from private letters are quoted 
also (Appendices 46, 47, 49, 50). Since the publication of 
the Blue Book, Bulgarian journals themselves have confirmed 
this information. The Preporetz of September 26th, 1916, 
writes : " A military commission began work on September 
16th in the town of Resan. In all parts of the liberated 
Bulgarian countries young men fit for military service 
hurry to the commissions of recruitment. By their entry 
into the barracks the forces of Bulgaria increase, and with 
them the earnest of a brilliant future." 

The semi-official Narodni Prava of October 16th, 1916, 
said : 

" The departmental commission of recruits at Kavadar 
informs us that the verification of r8 to 19 and 37 to 50 years 
is prolonged to the 25th of the present month. The commis- 
sion will operate in the chief town of the department on the 
18th and rgth for the division of Ghevgheli, the 20th and 2rst 
for that of Doiiran, and the 22nd to the 25th for that of Nego- 
tine." 

The Outro of October 31st, 1916 : 

" In the newly-liberated regions the recruits have every- 
where joined their units with great enthusiasm. Some days 
ago the recruits of Dabar (Dibra) left also." 

The Zaria of December 9th, 1916 : 

" All the Turks and Albanians of Katchanik from 20 to 
40 years old, whether or no they have served in the Turkish 
Army, are .ordered to present themselves to the regional com- 
mand at Uskub to be enrolled." 

So far it has been a question of the provinces of Serbian 
Macedonia only. But the measure was extended to other 
parts of occupied Serbia, and applied to the totality. 



270 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

The Preporetz, the Narodni Prava, the Mir of February 
14th, 1917, published the following notice : 

" Military commissions for the medical inspection of men 
aged from 18 to 40 years will sit : at Nish from March 20th 
to 27th ; at Kurshumlia, February 21st and 22nd ; at 
Prtchilovitza (named town of Dr. Radoslavoff), from March 
nth to 15th ; and at Veliko Gradishta, from March 19th to 
22nd." 

The Narodni Prava of February 15th, 1917, wrote : 
" All persons from 19 to 40 years of age are notified to present 
themselves before the recruiting commissions, which will sit 
from March 13th to iSth at Tchoupria, from March 2nd to the 
5th at Jubara, from March 20th to 23rd at Slivainatz, and from 
February 20th to 23rd at Dogni Milanovatz." 

The Balkanska Pochta of February 20th, 1917, said : 
" Following on telegraphic orders to the prefects of the 
towns of " Dr. Radoslavoff," Kurshumlia, Nish, Tchoupria, 
Jubara, Slivainatz, Veliko Gradishta, and Dogni Milanovatz, 
it is notified to the public that : 

" All inhabitants, aged from 19 to 40 years, of the town of 
Dr. Radoslavoff (Prtchilovitza) and its environs, are ordered 
to present themselves before the military commission, which 
will sit in that town from March nth to the 15th inclusive ; 
of Kurshumlia, February 20th and 2rst ; of Nish and its 
environs, from February 21st to March 27th ; of Veliko Gradishta, 
from March 12th to the 22nd ; of Tchoupria and its environs, 
from March 13th to the 18th ; of Jubara and its environs, 
March 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and 5th ; of Slivainatz and environs, 
from February 20th to 23rd ; and of Dogni Milanovatz, from 
February 20th to 23rd. Those who do not appear will be brought 
before the military tribunal and dealt with as recalcitrant." 

All the towns mentioned are in the ancient region of 
Serbia. Kurshumlia is in the department of Prokuplie, 
south-west of Nish ; Prtchilovitza (or " town of Dr. Rado- 
slavoff ") is north-east of Nish. Veliko Gradishta is on the 
Danube ; and with Jubara, in the Pojarevatz department ; 
Tchoupria and Slivainatz are on the Morava, in the centre 
of Serbia. Dogni Milanovatz is on the Danube, in the 
department of Vrania. Their names suffice to. prove that 
no part of Serbia has been exempted from the recruiting 
zone. 

To excuse this arbitrary measure, and in reply to the 
semi-official Serbian protests, the Bulgars maintained 
(communique of the Bulgarian Legation at Berne) that the 
two provinces (Macedonia and Morava) being pure Bulgarian, 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 271 

ethnically, the levy of recruits only responded to the pro- 
foundly patriotic feeling of the local population. They cited 
Martens (Treatise on International Law, Vol. III., page 252), 
according to whom, in a war of liberation, the occupying 
liberator has a right to levy troops and to use them against 
the oppressor. The best answer to their impudent asser- 
tions has been furnished by the populations themselves. 
The unfortunate inhabitants of the Morava and Macedonia 
were not of opinion that recruitment " responded to their 
profoundly patriotic feelings," but, on the contrary, the 
cup was full, this cruelty surpassed all others, and instead 
of answering the call of the authorities, by an act of despair 
rose against them. 



* : 
* 



Since the month of December, 1916, the Bulgars had 
perceived a certain effervescence among the oppressed 
population. Above all, in the departments of Nish, Vrania, 
Leskovatz and Prokuplie the people were ready to throw off 
the enemy yoke by a general rising. The beginning of 
April, 1917, was agreed on as the time for action. 

In February, the Bulgarian authorities, feeling some 
apprehensions, in order to nip the movement in the bud, 
ordered a new internment of the male population. This 
measure, carried out with much cruelty, like the attempted 
forced recruiting, forced the Serbian revolutionary organisa- 
tion to precipitate matters. 

The insurrection began in the department of Prokuplie. 
It was in the town of Kurshumlia that the revolt broke 
out with most vigour, under the leadership of a certain 
Kosta Petchanatz. The insurgents took Prokuplie, 
where there were '3 00 Bulgarian soldiers, whom they 
disarmed, conveyed to the environs of Vrania and there 
released them, with the words : " We do not wish to harm 
anybody. We wish only to free ourselves." 

The Serbian revolutionaries took possession of the arms 
deposited by the Bulgars in the military magazines. Their 
number augmented hourly. They occupied Prokuplie, 
Kurshumlia and Lebane, as well as the greater part of the 
district of Leskovatz. They established Serbian authority 
in these localities and the movement extended more and 
more. 

The Bulgars, seeing the movement taking a menacing 
turn, brought up numerous troops in haste. The repression 



272 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

was terrible. Bulgarian vengeance took the shape of a 
craving for pitiless massacre. A large number of villages 
were completely destroyed and the entire population put to 
the sword. Only children under seven years of age were spared. 

The Bulgarian authorities ordered an immediate depor- 
tation of the whole population from 17 to 70 years. An 
eye-witness was present when the wretched files passed 
through Nish in the first half of the month of April. Hun- 
dreds left every day. The streets of Nish were full of Serbs 
of all ages on the way to Sofia. The witness heard it said 
that they were to be taken through Bulgaria to Asia Minor. 

To put the world on the wrong scent, the Bulgars 
compelled a few individuals inhabiting the occupied towns 
to present addresses of loyalty to the occupying authorities. 

Precisely at the moment when the movement of revolt 
murmured in Serbia, the Bulgarian Government laid before 
the Sobranie a bill of urgency " for the pursuit and destruc- 
tion of brigandage." On March 3rd the President of the 
Council, Radoslavoff, declared from his seat in Parliament, 
in reply to the Socialists, that the latter " did not know what 
was happening in the new territories." 

Things were happening as dreadful for the Serbian 
people as they were shameful for the untoward " liberators." 
The Bulgarian press alluded to them only in an indirect 
and roundabout manner, in articles demanding the appli- 
cation of the " regime of grip." It was the Dnevnik of 
March 7th — at the moment when the Bulgarian and German 
divisions were stifling the insurrection at Kurshumlia — 
which sanctioned violence by the following argument : 

"In abnormal circumstances, through which the action of 
certain laws is suspended and several portions of the country 
are governed by laws of emergency, moral responsibility out- 
weighs legal responsibility. At present, moral responsibility 
is determined by the war aims we are pursuing. We are fighting 
for our existence, which means that every act which impedes us, 
whatever its source, must be punished. . . . 

" During these exceptional times, the only principle which, 
even from the standpoint of ordinary justice, has its raison 
d'etre, is that of submission, without conditions. 

" Much has been said about ' tolerance,' which some approve 
and others condemn. The principles of State discipline come 
before everything. Every policy which does not respond to 
these principles should be punished. All action on the part 
of individuals, of a nature to enfeeble the State, directly or 
indirectly, should be stamped out. We have only one point of 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 273 

view : The country is in danger, and only one watchword : 
The country before all." 

The Bulgarian telegraphic agency, speaking of a com- 
munique of the Serbian Press Bureau at Corfu, relative to 
the insurrection in Serbia, whilst denying the fact of an 
insurrection, was fain to avow that " a band of comitajis " 
had appeared in occupied Serbia, but took care not to men- 
tion the number of those composing the band. But what 
the Bulgars did not tell, the Austrians declared officially. 
In the Beogradski Novine, No. in, of April 24th, 1917, 
was a proclamation addressed to the Serbians living on occu- 
pied territory, from which we give a few extracts textually : 

" The story of the last attempt at insurrection — sad as it 
is for that small portion of the Serbian people led to certain 
suicide by paid leaders — has clearly foreshown the fate reserved 
for all similar enterprises of unscrupulous English agents, who, 
pretending interest in the freedom of small nations, work rather 
for their destruction.* 

" Every attempt made by enthusiasts incapable of learning 
wisdom to provoke revolt against the actual authorities will 
be pitilessly stifled from the first. All disorder will be repressed 
immediately, and order will be restored at the cost and to the detri- 
ment of the Serbian people exclusively. 

" The military Government General in Serbia declares that 
it will proceed, according to the law of necessities of war, for 
participation in revolt against any person who shall have aided 
an English or French agent, or any other foreign agent, in no 
matter what way, by giving him shelter, by not denouncing 
him spontaneously to the authorities or in favouring his plans 
in any way." 

The proclamation finishes by promising different pecu- 
niary rewards (2,000 and 1,000 crowns) to informers, etc. 

The Serbian insurgent forces, seeking to avoid the Bul- 
garian repression, had also to pass into the mountains 
which rise above the Morava Valley, and which form the 
boundary between the part of Serbia occupied by the 
Austrians and that held by the Bulgars. The proclamation 
aimed equally at Serbs who, struggling against the Bulgars, 
might have crossed the Bulgaro-Austrian frontier, and at 

* The Hvvatski Dnevnik, of Saraievo, of April 27th, reproducing 
this proclamation from Belgrade, adds the following remark : " The 
proclamation alludes to the recent insurrection in the part of Serbia 
administered by the Bulgarians at Kurshumlia ; a movement which 
doubtless had for its object the support of Sarrail's offensive, by cutting 
railway communications, has been rapidly stamped out, without causing 
any damage to the authorities, whilst the people have endured woful 
sufferings." 



274 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

those who might have given them shelter, or who, aware 
of their presence in the region, did not denounce them to 
the Austrian authorities. The draconian measures of the 
Austrian administration at Belgrade seem to be modelled 
on those, more brutal and ferocious still, taken by the 
Bulgars. The two oppressors on this occasion, as on all 
others, aided each other mutually, in the war of annihilation 
waged against the down-trodden Serbian people. 



Such is the atrocious regime of ruin and extermination 
which the Bulgars have exercised over the occupied Serbian 
provinces. Not only have they trampled underfoot all 
the accepted rules and most elementary principles of the 
law of nations, but they have constantly and systematically 
violated the most natural and fundamental rights of 
humanity. They began by throwing in the face of the 
world the lie that, ethnically, the occupied regions were not 
Serbian, but Bulgarian., and during the occupation they set 
themselves the task of attenuating the lie by exterminating 
the population and destroying everything that had a 
national, and therefore Serbian, character. Such are they 
who claim to be fourth in rank among European States, in 
the matter of education ; who affirm that society is better 
organised in Bulgaria than in western Europe ; who declare 
that they invade neighbouring countries with the sole 
object of civilising them. 

* 

We could not put a better finishing touch to this Bul- 
garian self-drawn portrait than by a few lines borrowed 
once more from the painful satire of " Baya Gagno " : 

" The behaviour of Baya Gagno, I am quite well aware, 
was insolent ; he appeared to me repugnant, miserly, selfish, 
untruthful and scheming ; I held him to be a hypocritical 
sharper, a creature coarse and brutish to the marrow . . . 
and, in spite of all, I pitied him. . . . 

" Do not despise this poor wretch, corroded, cunning, and 
thievish ; he is the produce of his rude -environment ; the 
victim of his brutal educators ; it is not in him alone that latent 
evil exists, but also in the surroundings that have influenced 
him. Baya Gagno is energetic, intelligent, sharp — above all, 
sharp. Subject him to the discipline of a good education and 
you will see what fine actions he is capable of performing. Up 
to the present, Baya Gagno has only displayed his external 



DEROGATION OF RULES AND CONVENTIONS 275 

strength, but he bears within him rich potentiality of spiritual 
strength which only awaits a moral incentive to transform itself 
into a living force." 

Let us hope so ! If this change were to come about, it 
would be for the happiness of the Bulgarian people, as well 
as for that of their neighbours, who, for centuries, have 
suffered so much, while waiting for it. 

Let us conclude, with the author of " Baya Gagno," by 
the last words he addresses to his hero : 

" Pardon me, Baya Gagno ! I take Heaven to witness 
that none but good feelings inspired me in writing your story. 
My pen was not guided by any intention of detraction, scorn, 
or raillery. ... I believe, Baya Gagno, that you have brothers 
who do not resemble your portrait, but they are still in obscurity ; 
scarcely are they beginning to emerge from it. But you — you 
are in full daylight ; your spirit is on the wing and troubles 
the whole of society ; it leaves its impress on politics, parties, 
the press. ... I hope that a day will come when, having read 
this little work, you will betake yourself to reflection, you will 
sigh and say : ' We are Europeans . . . but not yet quite ! ' " 

No, Baya Gagno, you are not a European, and during 
this severe test your instincts have shown it only too well. 

Let us hope for ' the realisation of all the conditions 
necessary to the developing and elevating of your brutal 
and rudimentary strength ; and let us trust, at the same time, 
that it will be made impossible for you to injure your 
neighbours until the moment when, become really a Euro- 
pean, you will have recognised this truth — that we cannot 
do harm to those around us without harming ourselves. 



APPENDIX 



NARRATIVES OF 
MR. ARCHIBALD FORBES 

AND 

MR. DAVID CHRISTIE MURRAY 



NOTE 

The opinions contained in the following extracts have all 
the more value as coming from those who, far from being 
prejudiced against the Bulgars, had every reason, through 
influences and environment, to lean the other way. Mr. 
Archibald Forbes, who represented the Daily News with 
the Russian army in the Russo-Turkish war of 1877, speaks 
for himself in his article in the Nineteenth Century, written 
whilst the war was still in progress. Mr. David Christie 
Murray, the special correspondent of the Times and the 
Scotsman, whose brilliant letters to the latter journal may 
be within the recollection of some, was a strong partisan 
of Mr. Gladstone in his great campaign for Bulgaria, as 
anyone who met him in Turkey, in 1877, will testify. 
Both Mr. Forbes and Mr. Murray set out on their missions 
inevitably prepossessed in favour of the Bulgars, and if 
either were inclined to indulge in polemic, it would have 
been a grateful task could they have done so on behalf of a 
people who had their sympathies. It was certainly detri- 
mental to their own interests to say anything against the 
Bulgars. Mr. Forbes lays stress on this, as will be seen — 
but they were honest men, and felt bound to speak the 
truth which had been forced upon them by the over- 
whelming evidence of personal experience. 

Z. D. F. 



APPENDIX 

By way of a corollary to the following narratives, it 
may not be inopportune to recall the fact that in 1877, at 
Shumla, north of the Balkans, a group of correspondents, 
among whom were the representatives of the Times, the 
Daily Telegraph, the Manchester Guardian and the Scotsman, 
signed a protest calling attention to the outrages com- 
mitted by Bulgars on the unarmed Moslem peasantry, 
notably on women and children. 

In 1913, before the outbreak of the second Balkan war, 
similar action was taken by some representatives of the 
leading European newspapers and news agencies then at 
Salonica. Here is the gist of a document drawn up and 
presented to the President of the Ligue des Droits de 
V Homme : — 

" Now that war seems inevitable, European opinion ought 
to be informed as to the conduct of the different Allies, and 
the responsibility should be fixed with regard to certain especially 
odious acts and excesses of all sorts which have been committed 
by the Bulgarians in the regions occupied by them. The 
European press has maintained a silence, almost systematic. 
Nevertheless, reports reach us daily of terrible atrocities, and 
these are confirmed by thousands of refugees. Greeks and 
Turks are equally sufferers. In the interests of justice and 
humanity there ought to be an impartial inquiry in order that 
the facts may be known, for such deeds are a reproach to the 
twentieth century, and, in our opinion, they call for a public 
protest." 

The signatories of this were the Times correspondent, 
Mr. Crawfurd Price ; Reuter's Agent, Mr. P. Donaldson ; 
the special correspondent of the Daily Telegraph, Capt. 
Trappman ; the correspondent of the Tsmps, M. Emile 

279 



280 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

Thomas ; the correspondent of Lc Journal, M. Tiano ; 
the correspondent of the Secolo, M. Luciano Magrini ; 
the representative of the Agence Havas, M. Turbe ; the 
correspondent of the Neue Freie Presse and the Frankfurter 
Zeitung, Herr Grohmann ; and the correspondent, of the 
Zeit, M. Besantche. It did not have much effect at the 
time, but was more than justified by what was revealed 
afterwards. Then came the Bulgarian attack, its repulse, 
and the retreat. The attack was characterised by M. 
Francis Charmes in the Revue des Deux Mondes as "a 
perfidious aggression, prepared beforehand, carefully cal- 
culated, and boldly executed." The retreat was red with 
massacre. The conspiracy of silence could no longer be 
maintained. The evidence was too strong. The first 
stirrings of public opinion in Europe were indicated by the 
despatch of the Consuls-General of Austria and Italy at 
Salonica to the interior on a mission of inquiry. This was 
followed by a special Commission sent by the French Govern- 
ment, consisting of M. du Halgouet and Colonel Lepidi. 
Both inquiries confirmed and established the accusations. 
The Daily Telegraph, the New York Herald and the Temps, 
through both its correspondents, M. Rene Puaux and M. de 
Jessen, bore witness to the dread happenings. Among 
a multitude of eye-witnesses were three Protestant pastors, 
and Pere Gustave Michel, of Kilkis, a French mission 
priest, and the sisters of the French Convent. " I 
curse the day," said the aged priest, " that made me a 
witness to so hideous a scene." The horrors will not be 
described here. Capt. Cardale, R.N., in a letter to a friend 
about the atrocities at Doxato, said : "I might, perhaps, 
give you more details, but there are some things one cannot 
bring oneself to speak about." Mr. J. W. Ozanne, in the 
Nineteenth Century for August, 1913, says : " The Bulgarian 
attack on the districts occupied by Greeks and Serbians 
was attended by scenes of unheard-of savagery, beside 



APPENDIX 281 

which the atrocities of Batak, which at the time sent a 
thrill of horror through the civilised world, pale into in- 
significance. . . . The subjects of King Ferdinand have 
established a record." 

M. Puaux wrote in Le Temps, a journal which at the 
outset championed the cause of Bulgaria : 

" The Bulgarian Army has put itself outside the pale of 
the laws of war, for it has massacred the civil population every- 
where. A Bulgarian officer avowed that the order to kill women 
and children was formal, in order to eliminate any ulterior 
claims to property in the territory conquered." 

M. Luciano Magrini, who made painstaking research 
lasting for several months, wrote in the Secolo of July 18th, 

1913 : 

" Personal inquiiy allows me to affirm that about 200,000 
Mussulmans, unarmed men, women, and children, were killed 
by the Bulgarians during the first months of the Balkan war. 
The whole of Eastern Macedonia and Thrace were sacked and 
terrorised. The silence maintained b}^ the Great Powers touch- 
ing the massacres of Mussulmans encouraged the Bulgarians 
to continue, and led to the present massacre and pillage of the 
Greek population." 



282 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 



Narrative of Mr. Archibald Forbes 

From an article in the Nineteenth Century for November, 

1877: 

" During the last three months I have traversed Bulgarian 
territory and entered Bulgarian villages in advance of any 
Russian troops. I have lived with, talked with, and dealt 
with the Bulgarian population, and taken great and persistent 
pains to ascertain their real and true character. 

" I believe I came to the work as completely a tabula rasa, 
in the matter of prejudices, as it is well possible to conceive. . . . 
Of politics, either home or foreign, I know shamefully little, and 
for them, I ought to blush to own, I have cared still less. I 
ask to be regarded as an accurate witness, limiting myself to 
the sphere of my own personal observation, and finally I would 
ask to be regarded as an honest witness, in virtue of the fact 
that what I am now doing must be greatly to my own detri- 
ment. In obeying the compulsion to fulfil a duty, I must 
offend many whose goodwill I would fain cherish, and must let 
go many friendships which I value very dearly. 

" An outspoken Russian of my acquaintance, with a large 
campaigning experience in Bulgaria, gave it out as his belief 
regarding the North Balkan Bulgarians that the}' must either 
be the result of a temporary lapse in creative vigilance or 
accepted as a refutation of the Darwinian theory of the survival 
of the fittest. . . . My experience of the Bulgarians, indeed, 
is that they have fewer attributes calculated to kindle sym- 
pathetic regard and beget genial interest than any other race 
of whose character I have had an opportune of judging. . . . 

" It tells, doubtless, in favour of the Bulgarian that he is 
nominally a Christian ; although his evidences of Christianity, 
so far as I have cognizance of them, consist chiefly in his piously 
crossing himself, in starting to drive a vehicle for the hire of 
which he has charged double a reasonably liberal sum, after 
having profusely invoked the name of the Saviour to corro- 
borate his asseverations that the price he asks is ruinously low. 
He cannot be denied a certain candour, which sometimes has 
a cynical flavour in it, as when he coolly tells a Russian, who 



APPENDIX 283 

in the character of his ' deliverer ' is remonstrating against 
his withholding of supplies or his extortionate charge for them, 
that ' the Turk was good enough for him/ and that he did not 
want deliverance. The Bulgarian is singularly adaptive. He 
realised his ' deliverance ' with extreme promptitude of percep- 
tion, resulting in bumptious arrogance. He drove his ox-cart 
with nonchalant obstinacy in the only possible rut, and grinned 
affably when your carriage springs were broken in trying to 
scramble out to pass him. In the towns he held the crown 
of the causeway. In the countiy regions, near the forepost 
lines, he sees it to be expedient to pursue the career of a double 
spy and a double traitor. 

" If ever one race owed a deep obligation to another, the 
Bulgarians did to the Turks, for the forbearance of the latter 
in leaving them and theirs unmolested in the evacuation before 
the advancing Russians in the last days of June, and in July. 
In all my wayfarings from the Lom to near to the Vid, from 
the Danube to the Balkans, I could neither hear of nor find a 
human being who had suffered ; and I am sure I inquired 
sedulously enough. Last year's straw stack stands in the farm- 
yard of every Bulgarian cottager ; the colour of its thatch 
proves that his habitation is not an erection of yesterday. The 
two-year-old colt trots on the lea along with the dam and the 
foal. His buffaloes are mature in their ugliness ; his wife's 
white metal water-pails are pitted with the dints of j^ears. Of 
the vines, whose fruit-clusters dangle on the brown fronts of 
Drenova's old oaken houses, the gnarled stems are as thick as 
my wrist. Pretty Maritza of Timova shows you proudly her 
blooming balsams, and her mother displays the yet remaining 
large stock of her last autumn's preservings. 

" And, by the way, it was of this same mother that the tale 
was written in England how the Pasha had informed her he 
would hang her, and indeed had even fixed the day for the 
operation, on the charge of concealing some obnoxious personage. 
I was given to understand, indeed, that some unpleasant com- 
munications had passed between the Pasha and the good lady, 
but how much, or how little, she was perturbed thereby may 
be gathered from the fact that she did not desist from her placid 
preparation of paprika paste — no, not on the very day named, 
or reported to have been named, for disqualifying her from the 
further enjoyment of that dainty. . . . The Turkish soldiers 
evacuated Sistova, without so much as breaking a twig on the 



284 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

front of a Bulgarian house. Disorganized bands of soldiers 
fell back through the rural villages without so much as niching 
a Bulgarian goose or requisitioning a Bulgarian egg. A Turkish 
army abode for days around Biela, without a jot of injury 
wrought on the townsfolk or their property. All along the 
Turkish retreat from the Jantra to the Lom, the Bulgarian 
experienced the same immunity. . . . How was this forbear- 
ance requited ? The moment the last Turk was gone from 
Sistova — not before, for your Bulgarian is not fond of chancing 
contingencies---the Bulgarians betook themselves to the sack, 
plunder, and destruction of the dwellings vacated by the Turks. 
'I have seen few dismaller spectacles than that presented by the 
Turkish quarter of Sistova, when I visited it, two days after 
the crossing. To me, as representing a journal whose goodwill 
the Bulgarians cherished, the Bulgarian patres conscriftti of 
Sistova strove to mitigate the disgrace. It had been wrought 
while as yet order had not succeeded to anarchy — the Cossacks 
had had a hand in it, which was a lie. . . . But stern measures 
had been taken to arrest any further devastation (there was 
little left to wreck). 

" I went out and, ascending the minaret of a mosque which 
had been wrecked and defiled, saw from the summit Bulgarian 
youths pursuing unchecked the wanton work of destruction. 
In every town and village, whence the Turkish inhabitants 
fled, their houses were at once wrecked. Colonel Lennox and 
Lord Melgund must be able to testify with how great order 
the Turks evacuated Biela. I can speak to the unharmed 
state of the place when I entered it, while as yet the Turkish 
irregulars were not yet out of sight. I can speak also to the 
zest with which its Bulgarian inhabitants began to wreak their 
spite on the houses of the Turks, as soon as they believed that 
the presence of Arnoldi's dragoons, on the heights above the 
place, deprived the work of any risk. ... I neither praise 
anyone nor blame anyone. But this I say, that all the Turks 
are reported as having done is, on credible evidence, not one 
whit more barbarous than was the conduct of the Bulgarians 
towards the Turks. ... It is not given to barbarians to accept 
with Christian resignation or civilised phlegm the spectacle of 
their dwellings wantonly razed, their crops stolen and sold, 
their little garden patches obliterated. They know that the 
miserables they find unaccountably remaining in the villages, 
deprived of Russian protection, were the culprits. They know 



APPENDIX 285 

that these welcomed the enemy of the Turk, acted as his guides, 
served him as spies, and found in him a customer for the Turkish 
crops. They know that these hung on the rear of the hapless 
retreating Turkish villagers in July, and slew them, ruthlessly — 
men, women, and children — when the safe chance offered. So 
the ' unspeakable ' Turk lets the rough edge of his barbarism 
come uppermost again, and perpetrates atrocities — inflicts 
reprisals ? Bah ! what matters it about a form of words ? 

"... And I sincerely believe, on the evidence of my own 
eyes and ears, that the Turks — the dominant race in virtue 
of those characteristics which, until the millennium, will ever 
continue to insure the dominance of a race — allowed the Bul- 
garians — the subject race in virtue of those characteristics 
which, while they exist, will always make a race subject to 
someone or other — to have by no means a bad time of it. But 
just cast a hasty glance at the conduct of the barbarian Turks 
during the past two years. The period opens with the Bul- 
garians, subject indeed to the Turks, taxed heavily and arbi- 
trarily, annoyed occasionally by a zaptieh, who must have been 
nearly as bad as the omnipotent ' agent ' of an Irish absentee 
landlord — but withal prospering mightily. ... To judge by 
the manner in which the Bulgarian civic functionaries appointed 
by Prince Tcherkasky are presently fulfilling their duties, from 
the principal councillor, who is making haste to be rich by 
pillaging alike casual Russian and resident countrymen, to the 
street policeman of Tirnova or Gabrova, who, clothed in a 
little brief authority, whacks about him indiscriminately with 
his rattan, it may be questioned whether the general progress 
of the world was seriously retarded by the enforced abstention 
of the Bulgarians from a share in the management of public 
affairs. 

" It was no doubt a sad thing that the stalwart manhood 
of the Bulgarians was debarred from proving in the defence 
of the country that it had a heart in keeping with its thews 
and sinews, although circumstances may inspire a doubt whether 
the iron of this prohibition ate deeply into the Bulgarian soul. 
I do not mean to say that it was all smooth and pleasant for 
the Bulgarians, or, indeed, for any of the races of which Turkey 
in Europe is made up ; but their lot, from all I have been able 
to learn, was tolerable enough. It seems to have been a lot 
for which the practical British philanthropist would gladly 
see a considerable section of his fellow country-people exchange 



286 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

their own wretched, sodden, hopeless plight. The life of the 
Bulgarian was eminently preferable to that of the miserable 
victims of the ' sweater.' I think Devonshire Giles, with his 
nine shillings a week and his few mugs of cider, would cheer- 
fully have put up with the zaptieh, exclusion from a share in 
the management of public affairs — although his home share 
in that privilege is so large and so highly prized — and would 
even have been resigned under the dispensation of debarment 
from military service, for the sake of the rich acres of pasture 
and barley land, the cattle and the brood-mares of the rural 
Bulgarian. I know that the Russian peasant soldier who has 
crossed the Danube as the ' deliverer ' of the Bulgarian from 
' oppression ' feels with a stolid bewildered envy that, to use 
a slang phrase, he would be glad indeed ' to have half his com- 
plaint.' 

" I never had but one occasion to appeal to an official Bul- 
garian, and the result was not encouraging. I had bought a 
pony from a Bulgarian citizen of Sistova. As I was not pre- 
pared for the moment to take the animal awa} T , I handed to 
the vendor, in the presence of witnesses, half the purchase 
money, and a trifle to keep the pony well till I should send 
for it in a couple of days. The transaction occurred in the 
man's own house ; he was no horse-coper, but everything 
around him indicated that he was a respectable citizen. Two 
days later I sent my servant for the pony. On his way he met 
the citizen riding the beast. My servant hailed him, where- 
upon he immediately wheeled about and galloped off to parts 
unknown. My servant, and subsequently myself, visited his 
residence, where his sister, who was his housekeeper, smiled 
blandly upon us, and declared herself ignorant whither he had 
gone and when he would return. I made a formal complaint 
in writing to a Bulgarian official in the police office, indicated 
as the right man to whom to complain, but never again saw 
either citizen, pony, or money. The complaint died a natural 
death. 

" Apologists for the proven barbarity of the Bulgarians' — 
men who acknowledge that they saw them driven away with 
horror b}/ Russian officers from their work of slaughtering 
Turkish wounded over whom a Russian column had passed — 
advance the plea ad culpam minuendam, that the Bulgarians 
have at least not ravished. There is told a different tale in the 
sad spectacle of the four Jewish ladies, sisters, now forlornly 



APPENDIX 287 

resident in the house of a merchant banker in Bucharest, of 
their own faith— outraged by God knows what rufhandom of 
uncounted Bulgarians in sight of their own father as he lay 
dying, murdered, in his own house in Carlovo." 



Narrative of Mr. David Christie Murray 

The following extract relates to the 3^ear 1877, when 
the author was special correspondent of the Times and the 
Scotsman in the Russo-Turkish war. The narrative occurs 
on pp. 167-176 of his volume of " Recollections : " * 

" In Philippopolis I was introduced to the Gueshoffs, a 
Bulgarian mercantile famiby, who had been established there 
for some generations. The two sons had been educated at 
Owen's College, Manchester, and might easily have passed 
anywhere as Englishmen. One of them was Deputy Vice- 
Consul for Great Britain, and the other held a similar office 
for the United States. I dined with them, and spent a very- 
pleasant evening, and I am sure that no visible shadow of mis- 
chance was then hanging over the household. But a fortnight 
later I was amazed to learn that the father and the two sons 
had alike been arrested on a charge of treason, that they had 
all three been tried before the military tribunal and condemned 
to death, whilst the whole of their possessions had been seques- 
trated by the commandant of the city, Ibrahim Pasha. This 
was in no special degree an affair of mine, but as soon as I heard 
the news I hastened back to Philippopolis, and in the course 
of a hurried interview with Mr. Calvert, the British Vice-Consul, 
the conclusion was arrived at that the official position of the 
two younger men was of a character to afford them some protec- 
tion against proceedings of so summary a nature. It became 
entirety obvious, as a result of a mere surface inquiry, that 
the charge against the Gueshoffs had been trumped up by the 
military authorities simply and purely because they were wealthy 
people, and the commandant saw his way to a handsome wind- 
fall. 

" Armed with such scanty proofs as I could gather, I set 

* " Recollections." By David Christie Murray. 1905. 



288 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

out for Constantinople, and, arriving there in two days, I laid 
my case before Sir Austin Henry Layard, who was then our 
Ambassador to the Porte, and the Hon. Horace Maynard, who 
was Minister for the United States. Sir A. H. Layard was a 
pronounced philo-Turk, and would not, for a moment, believe 
that any such abominable intrigue as I suggested could have 
occurred to the mind of any Turkish official. He received me 
with marked coldness, and I felt from the first that I could 
make no headway with him. Mr. Horace Maynard met me 
in another spirit. ' One of these men,' he told me, ' is under 
the protection of the American flag ; in his case, I shall insist 
on a new trial, and in the meantime the execution shall be 
suspended.' A fortunate chance threw me into communica- 
tion with Lady Layard, who was less violently prepossessed 
in favour of the Turkish Government than her husband. She 
promised me her most cordial assistance, but for three days I 
hung about Constantinople in a fever of apprehension, waiting 
for the Imperial firman, by virtue of which I trusted to secure 
an arrest of sentence. The execution of the three Bulgarian 
merchants was fixed for eight o'clock on the morning of the 
ensuing Saturday, and late on Wednesday night the longed-for 
document came into my hands. I attempted at once to tele- 
graph the news to Philippopolis, but the wires were cut in a 
score of places, and communication was impossible. The next 
train up-country started at seven o'clock in the morning, and 
it seemed as if I had ample time before me ; but somewhere in 
the neighbourhood of Adrianople a culvert had been blown 
up by the Bulgarian insurgents, and we were brought to a 
decisive standstill. There was nothing for it but to complete 
the journey on horseback, and here I was heavily handicapped 
by the fact that I had mastered but a scattered phrase or two 
of the language, and had the greatest difficulty in making my 
wants known. At length, by good hap, I encountered a Bul- 
garian who spoke a little French, and by his aid I contrived to 
get a mount. The moon was about at the full, and it was 
impossible to miss the road. I set out upon my journey with 
a better heart than I should have had if I had known what I 
learnt afterwards. The whole district between Adrianople 
and Philippopolis had been overrun by the irregulars, who 
were carrying everything before them with fire and sword. 
Luckily for me, they shunned the high road and devoted their 
attention to the outlying villages. Anything at once more 



APPENDIX 289 

dreary and more exasperating than that ride I cannot recall. 
I was badly mounted from the first, and at each succeeding stage, 
when, after an infinitude of difficulty and misunderstanding, 
I had secured an exchange, it seemed to be always for the worse. 
Some two months before, at Kara Bounar, I had been affected 
by a touch of dysentery, and this assailing me when I was 
only half through, made progress dreadfully difficult. But 
in the failing light of Friday evening, the great rock on which 
Philippopolis is built came into sight, and I could afford to 
make the last stage of my journey at a foot-pace, with the cer- 
tainty that I held a good nine hours in hand. I rode to the 
Roumelia Khan, the hostelry at which I had left my inter- 
preter, and thence, after a hurried meal, he and I set out in 
search of the. commandant, who, with his staff, had taken posses- 
sion of the mansion of some Bulgarian notable. I produced 
the firman duly signed and sealed, and demanded that, in 
accordance with its provisions, the prisoners should be removed 
under safe escort for re-trial at the port of Varna. The Pasha — 
a little man with a close-cropped beard which looked like black 
varnished wire — glanced at the document and angrily pro- 
nounced it an impudent forgery. I have not often seen a man 
so inspired by rage; the hand in which he held the official 
document was apparently as steady as a rock, but all the while 
he talked to us the stiff paper rustled noisily. .He declared 
that the execution should proceed, and he threatened to hang 
me with the others. It was not at all impossible that, in the 
existing state of the country, he might have ventured on that 
course, but I saw fit to remind him that I was, for the moment, 
the authorised representative of Great Britain and the United 
States, and that if he did violence to me in tha.t capacity, Turkey 
would be wiped off the map of Europe in a fortnight. The 
little commandant spoke French, and he surprised me greatly 
when I spoke of Les Etats Unis by interjecting in a tone of 
incredulous scorn : ' Les Etats Unis ! Ou sont les Etats Unis ? ' 
My interpreter broke in volubly with the statement that the 
Etats Unis were twenty times the size and had twice the power 
of Great Britain, and he and the little Pasha were both shouting 
together when, as Providence would have it, Mr. Fawcett, the 
British Consul-General, was announced. His presence calmed 
the storm at once, and he sternly bade Ibrahim obey the firman 
on peril of his own head. The Gueshoffs were duly deported, 
were re-tried and acquitted, and were allowed, I believe, to 



290 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

retire to Odessa until the close of the campaign. After that 
they returned to Philippopolis, and, according to the latest 
news I had of them, were prospering exceedingly. I had many 
other things to see to for months to come, but it surprised me 
somewhat to find that no communication reached me from 
them after they were known to be in safety. I had a notion 
that the salvation of three lives, at some personal risk and trouble 
and expense, was worth at least a ' thank you ' ; but years 
went on, and the whole thing had almost faded out of mind, 
when it was brought back suddenly by my encounter with 
another Bulgarian merchant, Melikoff by name, whom I met 
one fine summer's day at the Strand end of Waterloo Bridge. 
I had met him at the Gueshoffs' table, and I asked for news 
of them. Such intelligence as he had to give was wholly favour- 
able ; they were all well and prosperous. I suggested to him 
that I thought it at least a little odd that no one of them had 
ever thought it worth while to send me a line. ' Well,' he 
answered, in some embarrassment, ' they found it impossible 
to recover a very large part of their property when they got 
back to Philippopolis, and for some time, I can assure you, they 
were in considerable straits. ' I answered that they could scarcely 
have been in such straits as not to be able to buy a postage 
stamp, but the upshot of the matter was simply this. At the 
time at which I had been able to be of service to them I was 
the representative of the Scotsman and the Times, and was 
supposed to be something of a personage. It was impossible 
at the time for them to have offered what they would have 
thought would be a fitting recognition of my services, and, on 
the whole, it seems that they had thought it best to let sleeping 
dogs lie, and to say nothing at all about the matter. I might, 
it appeared, have made some kind of claim against them, which, 
though I could not have enforced it legally, they would have 
been bound in honour to recognise. I told him that this did 
not quite accord with British ideas of gratitude, but he appeared 
to think that he had offered a perfectly satisfactory explana- 
tion. It was quite obviously beyond him to conceive that I 
could have extracted any satisfaction from a mere acknowledg- 
ment of service rendered, or that such an acknowledgment 
would not have been used as the foundation for some more 
substantial claim. 

" As Edmund Burke said years ago, ' It is impossible to 
indict a nation,' but my experience does not leadjtne to believe 



APPENDIX 291 

that the Bulgarians are a grateful people. In K aider, for 
example, I was introduced, under circumstances of dramatic 
secrecy, to a refugee who was hiding for his life, and who had 
been concealed for days in a dark cupboard Math a sliding panel. 
I shall never forget the face of the haggard and fear-stricken 
wretch who crawled out of that hiding-place into the light of 
a solitary candle, or the enthusiastic protestations of gratitude 
on the part of his wife when I proposed that he should disguise 
himself as a farm labourer, and should take a place among 
the men who were driving down for me a set of empty arabas 
to Philippopolis. The simple plan succeeded, and the fugitive 
got over the frontier. The wife was very eager to show how 
much she felt beholden to me. Her husband had been a rose- 
grower, and she had for sale a quantity of the precious attar 
which she was willing to dispose of to me, and to me only, for 
a mere song. She would have given it gladly, but she had to 
join her husband, and some small amount of ready money was 
essential. I bought from her five very small phials, each con- 
taining perhaps a teaspoonful and a half of the liquid. She 
assured me the essence was absolutely pure, and that I could 
hardly have secured its like for love or money elsewhere. I 
was not the best pleased man in the world when I discovered 
that she had palmed off on me a perfumed olive oil, which by 
the time I examined it at Constantinople had turned rancid. 

" When I was engaged in the administration of the Turkish 
Benevolent Fund, the raising of which was mainly due to the 
late Baroness Burdett Coutts, the fact that I was bound on 
an errand of mercy, and that I was instructed not to spare 
relief by any consideration of religion or race, enabled me to 
penetrate into parts of the disturbed districts into which I 
should, not otherwise have dared to venture. In the course 
of my journey I came to Kalofer, where I found a singularly 
intelligent and attractive little Bulgarian boy whom I resolved 
to rescue from* the almost certain starvation which lay before 
him. His father had been the Vakeel of the place, and the 
child had of course been decently reared. He was pinched 
and pallid with hunger, and he had but a single garment, a pair 
of the baggy knickerbockers worn by the peasants of the dis- 
trict, which enveloped him from heel to shoulders. I got him 
decently attired, and in a while managed to place him in the 
care of a colleague at Constantinople, and when I left the country 
my brother-in-law, Captain William Thompson, who was engaged 



292 BULGARIA SELF-REVEALED 

in the Levant shipping trade, gave him a free passage to Liver- 
pool, where for the space of some months he lived with my 
sisters, the younger of whom turned schoolmistress for his 
advantage, and began to teach him English. Mr. Crummies 
used to wonder how things got into the papers, though perhaps 
he was under some slight suspicion of having contributed to 
their circulation. How the news of the young Bulgarian's 
arrival in England got there I do not know, but there was a 
considerable journalistic fuss about him, and the result was 
that a wealthy Bulgarian family, resident in Manchester, made 
overtures to my sister, and with my free consent formally 
adopted the child. Before this happened he paid them a pre- 
liminary visit, during which he was presented with a pony, 
and a male domestic servant was told off specially to his service. 
When his adoption was finally decided on, he went back to 
my sisters' house at Liverpool to gather up his belongings and 
to say good-bye. The little ingrate refused to say one word 
of farewell to either of them. ' I not English any longer,' he 
declared. ' I Bulgar again.' And, Bulgar, through and 
through, he was, to my thinking, sure enough. 

" It is quite true that you can't indict a nation, but I shall 
need some persuasion before I go out of my way again to be 
of use to any member of that particular section of the human 
family." 






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